Jogakura Onsen

Jogakura Onsen is a mountain hot spring in Aomori Prefecture in the volcanic highland zone of the Hakkoda Mountains, whose sulfurous, lithium-bearing, and simple mineral waters offer a therapeutically complex bathing experience combining the skin-stimulating properties of volcanic sulfide waters with the rare and calming effects of lithium content recognized in Japanese medicine as beneficial for nervous system function. The Hakkoda Mountains of central Aomori are famous for one of Japan's most catastrophic military disasters, the Hakkoda Death March of January 1902 when two hundred ten Imperial Japanese Army soldiers perished in a catastrophic blizzard during a cold weather training exercise, and the mountains' reputation for severe winter conditions is well deserved in a region that receives some of the heaviest snowfalls in the world. The thermal waters of Jogakura Onsen provide warming and restorative bathing in this powerful and historically charged mountain landscape, offering shelter from the severe Aomori highland climate in the geothermal warmth of the volcanic springs.