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Myōkō-Togakushi Renzan NP, Nagano
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Local tradition dates Otari Onsen’s discovery to 1555, when Takeda retainer Okada Jinichirō supposedly found its spring during the Kawanakajima conflict. Japan’s Environment Ministry preserves the story as a tradition, not a surviving eyewitness record.
At Yamada Ryokan, Otari’s Moto-yu and Shin-yu springs emerge naturally at 44.5°C and 48°C, flowing at 106 and 66.5 liters per minute. The inn says it sends the water to its baths without adding water or reheating it.
Yamada Ryokan’s main building was built in the late Edo period and expanded in 1884. Its second and third floors have veranda-like corridors, and the building was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2001.
Yamada Ryokan’s bathhouse began as a simple roof over an outdoor bath. In 1926, it was rebuilt with a Western-style interior—a surprising design turn in this mountain hot-spring inn. It is now a registered cultural property.
Beside the baths stands a small late-Edo Yakushi-do, once thatched with straw. Its presence tells a human story: for guests who came to Otari to recover from illness, praying was an important part of the healing stay.
The Otari Onsen Yamada Museum occupies a 1909 storehouse on the inn grounds. Its collection includes old inn records and an illustrated map from a shogunate ruling on a Shin-Etsu border dispute—local history preserved where supplies were once stored.
The mountain behind Yamada Ryokan once served as Otari Onsen’s ski slope, and university mountaineering clubs trained there. The inn’s current head recalls local guides sometimes following visitors on snowshoes, then pointing skiers toward Myoko from a mountain pass.
Mountaineer and writer Fukada Kyūya once waited out 4 rainy days at Otari Onsen while trying to climb nearby Mount Amakazari. On day 5, he crossed a pass toward Echigo; he later wrote that the mountain only grew dearer to him.
Yamada Ryokan still allows guests to cook for themselves during longer stays—a practice the inn says has become uncommon in Shinshu. It keeps a practical piece of toji culture alive: staying at a hot spring for rest and recuperation.
