Onsen Ryokan Yudanaka Gora

Onsen Ryokan Yudanaka in Yamanouchi, Nagano, draws bicarbonate-sulfate mineral waters at the base of the Shiga Kogen highland plateau — Japan's largest ski area and a 2018 Winter Olympics venue — in an onsen town most famous worldwide as the only place where Japanese macaques (snow monkeys) bathe in geothermal pools at the Jigokudani Monkey Park, a behavior unique in the primate world that was first documented in 1963 and has since been photographed more than any other Japanese wildlife image. The Yudanaka Ryokan tradition offers thermal bathing in the same spring system that drew the macaques to discover geothermal soaking, creating an experience of unusual wild-animal-and-human thermal coexistence. Winter evenings at Yudanaka, with steam rising from the outdoor baths against the backdrop of snow-laden beech forest and the distant sounds of the monkey park, capture a quintessential Japanese winter onsen scene of global imaginative power.