Skiing in the Hakuba Valley
The Hakuba Valley is located deep in the Japanese Alps, approximately 3 hours from Tokyo.
Japan is renowned for its Onsen and precise bathing rituals. With a dusting of snow, an onsen and a lot of cheeky monkeys, a visit to the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park at Yudanaka in winter is a delight.
Waking to another rainy day during a week of skiing in Hakuba, which you can read about here, I decided to take the bus into Nagano, followed by a train ride through the country towns and plentiful apple orchards to Yudanaka to visit the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park.
If you’re staying in Hakuba, consider this a day trip. I took the early – 6:30am – bus from the central bus station to Nagano train station and caught the connecting train, arriving at Yudanaka around 9am.
A shuttle bus soon dropped me at the base of the Kanbayashi Ski Run in the Shiga Kogen Ski Resort, and with nothing more than a car park and a small village, I was curious about the large concrete building sitting alongside a tall glass conical-shaped structure in such a quiet small town.
I later discovered the building was a Roman Art museum – totally unexpected in a ski resort in Japan and unfortunately closed – maybe next time!
Following the signs through the village, admiring the homes, restaurants, and Ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel. The start of a steep path and a shrine indicated I was heading in the right direction into the cedar forest.
The path winds up through the forest around halfway from the valley floor below, where the Yokoyu River makes its way from deep in the mountains down into the village and surrounding farmland.
Depending on your fitness and snow conditions, the walk can take between 30-45 minutes, and it can be quite muddy! It’s a beautiful walk amongst the tall cedar trees, with or without snow, providing a deep green canopy as the path meanders up towards the monkey park.
A light dusting of snow had fallen the day before, so while not the heavy snow I’d seen in the brochures, it still gave me a ‘snowy’ feeling, and it was very pretty.
With one last set of steep stairs, I reached the entrance, where staff provided me with information about do’s and don’ts regarding the monkeys.
A lot has been written about visiting the snow monkeys, and while I kept an open mind, it’s important to understand the monkey onsen isn’t a natural structure.
The onsen was built in the 1950s when the monkey’s habitat was being threatened by local development, forcing them down from their mountain home and into the village in search of food, often stealing the local farmer’s crops and fruit. Apples are grown in the area, and this angered the farmers however, following observation of the monkeys ‘bathing’ in the nearby hot river springs, the ‘monkey onsen’ and nature park was created by diverting the hot spring waters that run from high up in the mountains.
While there is some fencing in place, the monkeys are not caged and are free to come and go from the mountains as they wish. However, they are now mostly reliant on the food provided by the caretakers of the park.
I walked along the path, and a few small monkeys scurried about, stopping to eat small grains of barley on the ground. This was my first encounter, and they were quite cute.
Once the onsen came into view, I was surprised to see how close we could get to the monkey’s bathing but also dismayed at the ugliness surrounding the onsen.
The onsen sits against the hillside next to the Yokoyu River. Constructed from the local rock, it blends into the surrounding scenery and overall is quite pretty. Downstream, however, the landscape has been left as a muddy construction site and in a sad state of disrepair.
I’m sure after a heavy snowfall when everything is covered under a blanket of white, it would be beautiful, however, outside of this, it’s quite disappointing.
On the bright side, the monkeys seemed perfectly happy as they came and went about their own business of bathing, grooming, and even fighting over food and territory and generally behaving like monkeys.
As mentioned, the monkeys are very close, with the little ones running about my feet as they played games and got up to mischief. It is also tricky to photograph in and around the onsen as the rising steam fogs up the camera lens.
It is a joy to see them in their family groups, especially the mums cuddling the little ones. The little ones play running games with each other, much to the delight of us, the visitors, while others take naps snuggled together or go about grooming each other, all the while seeming quite oblivious to our presence.
The snow monkeys have very expressive faces, and their red faces don’t mean they are embarrassed at being caught bathing, the red colouring shows they’ve reached adulthood. The females have a definite social and class system, while the male monkeys leave their families upon reaching adulthood.
The monkeys, or Macaques, are a species native to Japan and are the most northern-living non-human primate, surviving temperatures as low as -15ºC. They love bathing in the warm waters of the onsen and take on an almost zen appearance as they sit peacefully enjoying the natural bath.
I’m pleased I took the time to visit the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park. I would say these monkeys are living their best life, and hopefully, one day, the park owners might take the time to clean up downstream and turn the whole area into a snowy onsen oasis.
Nicole x
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