A roar from the depths
Hot water erupts from the floor of the Yokoyu valley with a roar once said to sound like it came from the bottom of hell, hence 'Jigokudani' (Korakukan). The geyser became a national natural monument in 1927. In 1864 Takefushi Manzo opened an inn here; after repeated floods it moved to its present site around 1911. Seven generations on, Korakukan is still the only inn, with no road: you walk in about 2 km from Kanbayashi Onsen. In 1933 the Go masters Kitani Minoru and Go Seigen developed their 'new fuseki' opening theory here.[2][5]
The monkey who followed an apple
According to Korakukan, in 1961 a young monkey chased a dropped apple into the inn's open-air bath, the first monkey anywhere known to enter a hot spring; the habit spread through the troop. To ease conflict between people and monkeys pushed off the mountains by ski development, the Jigokudani Monkey Park opened next door in 1964 with a pool reserved for them. At 850 m, in a valley snowbound for a third of the year, the monkeys bathe mainly when it is cold. The park states plainly that the animals are wild and may not come, and forbids feeding, touching or staring into their eyes at close range.[2][3][6]
Hot water for people and for monkeys
Korakukan's riverside open-air bath is mixed, with the geyser straight ahead; there are also a women-only outdoor bath, separate indoor baths and a private family bath. The water, sodium–calcium sulfate/chloride and other springs at 62.2–75.6 °C, flows straight from the source with cold water added against the heat. In winter monkeys sometimes join the human bathers, and the inn calls itself 'a hot-spring inn where you live like family with the monkeys'. Day bathing is 1,500 yen for adults. Single-occupancy plans exist, and for overseas guests there is English online booking and vegetarian food.[7][2][8]
