West Nagano · ShirahoneNo.1233★★Open in map →
Shirahone Onsen
— Milk-white sulphur water in a limestone gorge
A hot-spring hamlet strung along a gorge on the northern side of Mount Norikura, in the mountains west of Matsumoto. The water leaves the rock clear and turns milk-white in the air, and one bath above the river is public rather than attached to an inn.
- FromMatsumoto Station
- ~1 hr 40 minTrain, then a mountain bus
- Get off atShin-Shimashima Station (Alpico Kamikochi Line)
- From there
- Shirahone Onsen
The sweet spot
Shirahone is a known name — it turns up on every Japanese list of milky hot springs — but it is not on the way to anywhere. A single road climbs into the valley and stops among the inns, and the bus from the railhead takes the best part of an hour. Most visitors therefore arrive around midday and leave before dark, which leaves the far ends of the day to whoever has stayed.
Where it is
27 more notes in Nagano · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Nakazato Kaizan monumenta stone to the novelist whose serial fixed this spelling of the name, a minute from the information centre
- Ryujin Fallswater spreading in threads over moss and lime beside the road, hung with icicles in midwinter
- The public open-air batha stone-rimmed pool of milk-white water on the cliff above the river, open to day visitors
- Sinter mound and spherical limestonea low dome of lime laid down by an ancient vent, listed as a Special Natural Monument
- Sudodoshi and the Yukawa gorgea natural tunnel six metres high and twenty metres long, bored by the river through its own limestone
How to actually get there
- Matsumoto Station → Shin-Shimashima Station (Alpico Kamikochi Line, about 30 minutes).
- Shin-Shimashima bus terminal → Shirahone Onsen stop (route bus, about 1 hour, changing at Sawando).
- Shirahone Onsen stop → the public open-air bath (walk a couple of minutes uphill).
- Bath → riverside path → the sinter mound and Sudodoshi (walk 8 to 10 minutes down the valley).
- Kamikochi Line to Shin-Shimashima, then the route bus
- Matsumoto Station → Shin-Shimashima Station on the Alpico Kamikochi Line, about 30 minutes. From the bus terminal beside the station, take the route bus toward Shirahone Onsen, changing at Sawando; the bus leg runs about an hour. Get off at the Shirahone Onsen stop.
- Bus and train, the same way back
- Return by bus from the Shirahone Onsen stop to Shin-Shimashima, then the Kamikochi Line down to Matsumoto. There are only a handful of departures a day, so pick your bus in the morning, treat it as the last one, and be at the stop early.
About the place
Shirahone stands at about 1,400 metres in a steep-sided valley cut by the Yukawa river, in the mountains of western Matsumoto. The inns are strung in a line along the gorge rather than gathered round a square, so the hamlet reads as one long lane pressed between wooded slopes. The water carries a heavy load of dissolved lime; it leaves the rock clear and clouds to a pale blue-white in the open air. That mineral load has built the ground itself here — a mound of deposited lime down by the river, and a stretch of rock the water has bored straight through. A free drinking spring stands beside the road for anyone who wants the taste as well as the bath.
How to enjoy it
The public bath opens from ten on weekdays and from nine at weekends, and closes in the afternoon, so this is a place for an unhurried arrival rather than a dawn start. Walk the riverside boardwalk between the falls and the sinter mound while the light is still down in the gorge, then take the bath afterwards. Drink a cup at the roadside spring on the way past — the same water, straight and cold.
Background & history
Local account has the spring already flowing in the Kamakura period. Edo-period bathers set thirty-three Kannon figures along the path in thanks for water that the old saying credits with keeping colds away for three years after a three-day stay, and a hall to the healing Buddha Yakushi went up in the same era. The place was long written Shirafune, 'white boat'; the present spelling settled after the novelist Nakazato Kaizan set scenes here in his serial Daibosatsu Toge during the Taisho years. The sinter mound and its spherical limestone are now a Special Natural Monument.
Before you go
- Cash
- The public open-air bath charges 700 yen for an adult, taken at the counter. Several inns along the gorge also open a bath to day visitors at their own rates and hours. Bring cash for the day — this is a mountain hamlet, not a town.
- Before you go
- The public bath rests on Thursdays and shuts for the winter from late November, reopening in spring; the exact date moves from year to year, so check before travelling between December and April. Bus services over the pass follow a seasonal calendar too, while the onsen's own guidance is that the road stays usable by car through the year.
- Another way
- By car, the valley is reached from the Matsumoto interchange by way of Sawando and the same single road up the gorge. From the Takayama side in Gifu, cross to Sawando first and turn up the valley from there.
- After you get off
- Shin-Shimashima is the end of the railway and the start of the bus network for this range; the terminal sits beside the platform. At the far end, the Shirahone Onsen stop is next to the information centre, and the public bath is a couple of minutes uphill from it.