Unazuki Kanko Onsen

Unazuki Kanko Onsen sits at the entrance to the Kurobe Gorge, Japan's deepest and most dramatic gorge, where the Kurobe River has carved a precipitous 90-kilometer trench through the granite heart of the Northern Alps that is navigated by the Kurobe Gorge Railway — Japan's longest narrow-gauge excursion railway, whose open-sided carriages carry passengers through tunnel after tunnel of sheer rock face, past raging river, and alongside waterfalls in what is widely considered the most scenically spectacular train journey in the country. The Unazuki Onsen complex at the gorge entrance has been welcoming guests since the early 20th century, its mineral waters collecting the geothermal heat generated by the same granite massif through which the railway passes above, connecting the thermal tradition to the geological forces that created both the gorge and the springs. Soaking in these siliceous mineral waters at the mouth of a gorge whose interior contains some of Japan's most inaccessible and pristine mountain wilderness offers a uniquely layered experience of Toyama's extraordinary alpine landscape.