Hakusan Onsen

Hakusan Onsen lies at the base of Hakusan — the White Mountain — one of Japan's three sacred mountains, whose summit at 2,702 meters is visible from four prefectures and has been a destination of religious pilgrimage since the monk Taichō first ascended it in 717 AD, establishing a Buddhist practice on the mountain that fused with indigenous Shinto beliefs to create the syncretic mountain worship tradition of Hakusan Shinto, which spread from this mountain to more than 2,700 Hakusan shrines across Japan. The Hakusan National Park surrounding the mountain protects extensive alpine ecosystems of snowfields, volcanic lakes, and the spectacular Japanese beech forests that make the mountain approaches among the most botanically rich environments in the Chubu region, with endemic plants and an extraordinary concentration of alpine flowers in the brief summer season. The onsen's siliceous mineral waters, rising from the volcanic geology of Japan's sacred white mountain, offer pilgrims and hikers the same restorative bathing that has welcomed visitors to Hakusan's foothills since the mountain's spiritual significance first drew worshippers to these geothermal springs centuries ago.