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Chubu-Sangaku NP, Toyama
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At 2,410 m (7,907 ft), Mikurigaike Onsen is recognized as Japan’s highest-altitude hot-spring inn. Its bathhouse sits on Murodo Plateau, above the steaming Jigokudani valley.
A meal starts with a mountain haul: ingredients are carried up to 2,410 m before cooking. Menus can include Toyama specialties such as deep-sea gengge fried crisp, white-shrimp karaage, and marinated firefly squid.
The source water is 45°C, with a pH of 2.28. Pale and sulfur-scented, it reaches the bath without dilution or reheating—a genuinely natural soak high above the clouds.
The spring is sourced in Jigokudani, 340 m away and 100 m below the inn. After gas is removed, pumps lift the water uphill—a small feat of mountain engineering behind every bath.
The inn’s namesake pond was once written 御厨ヶ池, or “the gods’ kitchen,” and revered as sacred. Yet Tateyama Mandala depicts Mikurigaike as one of the hells—a striking double identity for this serene crater lake.
On July 3, 2026, the Tateyama Nature Conservation Center reported a ptarmigan mother and 5 chicks at nearby Enma-dai—the season’s first brood reported on Murodo, after about 5 pairs’ first nesting attempts failed.
Mikurigaike Onsen began as a two-person venture: founder 尾近八郎右衛門 opened the mountain hut with a friend in 1957. Today, a third-generation representative leads the inn.
The café serves “Enma-sama’s Hot Pizza” with optional “Hell Drops”: red Tabasco-style, green jalapeño, or yellow curry sauce. Those playful names suit the inn’s views of nearby Jigokudani—Hell Valley.
Rainwater doesn’t simply collect in Mikurigaike: the inn says it seeps underground and drains toward Jigokudani. The namesake crater lake and the steaming valley below are linked by hidden drainage, not a visible stream.
