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Towada-Hachimantai NP, Aomori
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Yakeyama sits at the downstream end of a gorge born from a lake’s escape: about 15,000 years ago, Lake Towada’s rim broke, and the outburst flood cut through volcanic deposits to carve the Oirase valley.
Towada and Oirase were little-known until travel writer Ōmachi Keigetsu visited in 1908. His essay in Taiyō magazine made them famous across Japan—just 5 years after a forest road first opened from Yakeyama.
Yakeyama’s hot-spring resort began in 1963—not with a local spring, but with water piped 16 km from Sarukura Onsen on Hakkōda’s foothills. It leaves at 70–80°C and arrives cool enough for a bath.
Yakeyama’s Oirase Spring Water Hall bottles local Oirase water, serves coffee brewed with it, and makes “Oirase moss soft-serve”—a dessert inspired by the gorge’s mossy stones.
At local chief Koichi Ogasawara’s urging, a forest road was cut from Yakeyama toward Lake Towada in 1903, with work running July–September. The complete 14-km walking trail took until 1975.
Yakeyama marks both the end of the 14-km Oirase Gorge and the confluence where Hakkōda’s Tsuta River joins the stream. The river falls from 400 m at Lake Towada’s Nenokuchi outlet to about 200 m here.
More than 300 moss species have been documented in Oirase’s humid gorge. In 2013, the Japanese Bryological Society named it Japan’s 19th “Precious Moss Forest”—an honor for the stretch reached from Yakeyama.
In 2020, Yakeyama’s inns renamed their hot-spring district from Towadako Onsenkyo to Oirase Keiryu Onsen. The change highlighted the gorge and avoided confusion with a separate resort beside Lake Towada.
