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Daisetsuzan NP, Hokkaido
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At 1,280 m, Tokachidake Onsen is officially billed as Hokkaido’s highest hot-spring resort. It sits near the forest limit, with open-air baths looking over the Furano Basin.
Nukkakushi Crater’s heat feeds these springs; after 1988–89, as the crater cooled, temperatures and dissolved minerals fell at Ryounkaku and Oki, a change geologists link to waning volcanic heat.
The nearby source crater is also called Ansei Crater, yet the Tokachidake Geopark says there is no evidence it erupted during the Ansei era—a useful reminder that a place-name is not proof of an eruption.
Ryounkaku’s baths don’t all share one spring: a cool, acidic source feeds its dedicated acid bath, while a hotter, near-neutral iron-rich well supplies its main and outdoor baths.
On 3 May 1959, local entrepreneur Kyuzaemon Aida discovered a hot spring while surveying Tokachidake for a map. Drilling the following year secured a source at 43°C, flowing 250 liters a minute.
Building up here meant a 1.6-km pipeline pinned to rocks and cliffs from the source to the inn. Before a road existed, workers hauled construction materials uphill by hand and horse.
The resort’s founder first campaigned in print: Aida launched a local weekly to promote opening Tokachidake and planned to stop publication once the mountain was developed. Then he found a spring and built the resort.
Mt. Tokachidake erupted in 1962 while the hot-spring inn was being built; Ryounkaku’s formal opening followed on 10 July 1963.
A local history records a naming debate: some thought Furano-dake was the more natural name, but founder Aida insisted on Tokachidake, which he believed Kamifurano’s predecessors had long regarded as their mountain.
