Finally got around to my snowy onsen escape -- better late than never? After lots of research, we ended up doing one night each in
Onogawa and
Shirabu (thanks
Calcifer and
O Sora!) up in Yamagata, and boy oh boy, did they both kick oshiri!
It was clear and snowless in Tokyo and we'd been a little worried about how much there'd be waiting for us, but the snow just started piling up as we zoomed north on the Shinkansen. Shortly after Fukushima the train plunges into a series of tunnels, and in Kawabata's words,
nagai tonneru wo nukeru to yukiguni de atta. Precisely two hours after leaving Tokyo, we stepped off at Yonezawa into a virtual blizzard, with a good half meter of the white stuff on the ground.
At Onogawa (30 min by bus), we stayed at
Kajikaso, which was great: traditional old-school ryokan, but recently renovated and spic and span inside, with seriously gourmet food with a couple of Western touches and -- no small matter in Japanese inns in winter! -- great heating too. See
my TripAdvisor review for more detail.
Onogawa village was also surprisingly pleasant, quite a few traditional or traditional-style buildings too, and the local ramen hit the spot. But around midday the next day, we backtracked to Yonezawa and boarded another bus to Shirabu, about an hour away... and at the terminus, we were met by a minivan that ferried us another 15 min up the hill to
Azumaya Ryokan (吾妻屋旅館, no website), which is the only place to stay at Shin-Takayu Onsen. Totally lacking in the swank of the Kajikaso, facilities and food here were much more mountain hut/minshuku style (buckets instead of showers, lay out your own bedding etc), but who cares when you've got this:
One indoor bath and five (5) outdoor baths, all mixed, with ridiculous amounts of snow piled up -- they had 70 cm by late Dec and the okamisan told us there's over well north of 2m by February. And since we were there on an off-season weekday a few days before Xmas, there was just one other couple staying, meaning that we pretty much had the run of the place. Add in a bottle of sake (no glass in the baths, but plastic's OK!) and it just doesn't get much better than this!
It also turns out that Azumaya is a member of the 日本秘湯を守る会 or "Association to Protect Japanese Hidden Hot Springs", which has around 190 affiliated little ryokan scattered around the country. I'll definitely be using their site for future hot-spring hunting!
http://www.hitou.or.jp/ 