Nozawa Onsen

Chubu, Japan · Snow, Town / small city, Mountain

A 1,200-year-old hot spring village that also happens to be a ski resort: thirteen public bathhouses run by the residents themselves, water surfacing at 90°C in the middle of the lanes, 1,085 metres of powder-covered vertical above the rooftops, and, every 15 January, one of Japan's three great fire festivals.

The essentials

Getting there

Train + bus — Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo to Iiyama (100-120 min, around ¥8,500, roughly hourly), then the Nozawa Onsen Liner bus from stop 4: 25 min, ¥600, every 1-2 hours. The local Nagaden bus (stop 2) takes 40 min via Iiyama and Kijimadaira and you pay on the way out. Be warned: bus departures are poorly matched to shinkansen arrivals, so check the timetable before booking the train. Direct buses run from Nagano (about 40 km) in snow season. The JR East Pass and Japan Rail Pass cover the shinkansen to Iiyama but NOT the final bus leg. In winter there are ski buses from Shinjuku and Ikebukuro as well as from Nagoya and Osaka, plus bookable shuttles and private transfers from Narita and Haneda. From Matsumoto, take the JR Shinonoi line to Nagano and the shinkansen to Iiyama, 2h30-3h in all. The village is walkable: the bus terminal is central and the baths, lodgings and lift bases are 5-20 minutes away on foot, though it is all uphill and packed with snow, so wheeled suitcases suffer.

What it is genuinely strong in

🏟️ Sports & live events

Frequently asked questions about Nozawa Onsen

What to do in Nozawa Onsen: 31 activities

• Dosojin Matsuri, the fire festival of 15 January 3 h must-see booking only 13-15 Jan

  One of Japan's three great fire festivals, always on 15 January, and a designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property: around a hundred villagers raise a seven-metre wooden shrine on the Baba field, and that night the men turning 42 defend it from on top while the men turning 25 attack with torches — fireworks at 20:00, the official lighting at 20:30, and the whole structure alight by about 22:00. The bit almost nobody mentions: since 2024 the ground is fenced and ticketed, and tickets go only to residents and to people staying overnight in the village, so the room has to be booked many months ahead. It is a rite, not a show: no alcohol, bottles, cans or drones, and leave the thin synthetics at home because embers fly.

• Skiing Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort 7 h must-see only late November to early May

  297 hectares, 36 runs and 1,085 m of vertical between the village at 565 m and the summit of Mt Kenashi at 1,650 m, served by two gondolas (Nagasaka and Hikage) and around twenty lifts in all. A day pass is ¥7,500 (¥4,500 children, ¥6,000 over-60s); half day ¥6,400, two days ¥13,900, three days ¥20,300. It is the resort's own pass: it is NOT part of the Hakuba Valley joint ticket, nor Shiga Kogen's, nor the Ikon Pass. The 2025-26 season ran 29 November to 6 May, but dates depend on snow and are confirmed each autumn on the resort site.

• The thirteen soto-yu: a circuit of the village bathhouses 2.5 h must-see

  Thirteen bathhouses scattered along the lanes, owned by the residents and cleaned in rotation by the neighbourhood associations known as yu-nakama: no counter, no attendant, just a donation box at the door, where a ¥100 coin per bath is the norm. Open 5:00-23:00 from April to November and 6:00-23:00 from December to March, with no towel or soap for rent, so bring your own. The water arrives very hot — tubs run between 42 and 49°C and some sources come out above 70 — so ease in, and only open the cold tap after asking whoever is already in. You wash sitting outside the tub, and the towel never touches the water.

• First tracks on a storm day 1 h only 15 Dec - 31 Mar

  The plan for a snowy morning: take the first gondola at 8:30 and get two or three runs in the upper Yamabiko area before it is tracked out. The resort publishes no official average snowfall, but good winters top ten metres and peak bases up high have run between 460 and 480 cm in recent seasons. January is the reliable powder month with February close behind; March brings big days but also rain lower down, and in the village at 565 m the snow is always heavier than up top.

• O-yu, the bathhouse at the crossroads 0.75 h

  The largest of the thirteen and the most photographed: a wooden building with a steep gabled roof in the Edo bathhouse style, right at the village crossroads. Inside are two adjoining tubs, the scalding atsu-yu and the slightly kinder nuru-yu, with sulphurous water you can smell from the street. Free with a donation; wash sitting on the stool before getting in, and keep your towel out of the water.

• Staying in a village ryokan 3 h booking

  The typical lodging is a family ryokan or minshuku in the village, with tatami, its own hot-spring bath and a mountain dinner included, ¥12,000-30,000 per person half board. Many lend yukata and geta for the soto-yu and keep your skis in the entrance hall. In peak weeks (New Year, the 15 January festival and February weekends) they fill six months ahead.

• The 10 km descent to the village 1.5 h only snow permitting, from December to April

  Nagano's longest descent: ten linked kilometres from the summit of Mt Kenashi down to the village. The centrepiece is the Skyline, six kilometres along a ridge with views over the Iiyama valley, narrow in places and with flat sections you have to tuck through; not a beginner run, though not a hard one either. At the bottom you peel left for the gentle Karasawa slopes or right for the steep ungroomed runs (Grand Prix, Jumping). An hour and a half with stops, and the top closes in wind, which on Kenashi is routine.

• The Yamabiko trees and the powder runs 4 h only 20 Dec - 31 Mar

  The upper mountain, between 1,300 and 1,650 m, is where the powder keeps: wide untracked edges, the Yamabiko walls, and the birch and beech glades that open between the A, D and E runs. This is in-bounds skiing, but the trees are neither marked nor patrolled like a piste: go with a partner in sight, never alone, and give big trunks a wide berth because of the soft hollows at their base, the tree wells you can end up trapped in head-down. The four Yamabiko lifts close earlier than the rest in wind.

• Walking the village in the snow 1.5 h

  Nozawa is not a purpose-built ski resort: it is a village of steep lanes with wooden ryokan, pickle shops, hot-water channels steaming under the snow and two-metre banks of shovelled snow. It takes a good hour on foot from the bus terminal up to Ogama, and mid-afternoon is when you see locals in yukata and geta padding from one bathhouse to the next.

• After the slopes: village izakayas and bars 2.5 h

  Nozawa's après is the village itself: ten-seat izakayas, two or three bars with music and local craft beer, and the odd room where instructors and seasonaires gather. January and February bring plenty of Australians and Europeans, and almost everyone eats between 18:00 and 21:00; it empties early after that, because the bathhouses open at six in the morning.

• Beech forest trails and the Kenashi lookouts 3.5 h only from July to early November

  Up top, between the gondola station and Mt Kenashi, seven signed trails run through the plateau's old-growth beech forest: the easy ones (Flower Field, Highland, Beech Forest) are 1.6-2.3 km and 30-60 minutes, while the steep ones climb to the Kokenashi and Okenashi lookouts. The best short one is the Kokenashi observation point, 650 m from the top station at 1,450 m: ten to fifteen minutes on foot, with the village, the Chikuma river and, on a clear day, the Northern Alps laid out below. They run from mid-July to early November, and Nordic walking poles rent for ¥300 a day.

• Furusato no Yu, the paid bath with an open-air tub 1.5 h

  The village-run bathhouse in the Ogama park, and the easy option if the soto-yu feel like too much: ¥700 for adults and ¥500 up to primary age, with an outdoor tub, hot and warm indoor baths, and shampoo and soap provided, which the thirteen neighbourhood baths do not have. Open 10:00-19:00 from April to mid-December and 11:00-20:00 in winter, closed Thursdays except on public holidays.

• Karasawa and the easy runs with children 4 h only while the resort is open

  Forty per cent of the terrain is beginner-graded and almost all of it is on the lower mountain: Karasawa and Hikage have wide, gentle pistes with magic carpets, a sledding area and a kids' school, and from there you ride up to the Uenotaira plateau, where anyone who can already stand up finds kilometres of blue runs with no nasty pitches. Save the upper Yamabiko bowls for later in the trip.

• Lessons and equipment rental 3 h booking only while the resort is open

  The resort's own shop (Salomon Station, third floor of the Nagasaka Center House, 8:15-16:45) rents a full package of skis or board with jacket, pants and helmet for ¥9,000 a day (¥6,800 children), skis or board with boots for ¥5,500, clothing alone for ¥4,000, and high-end powder gear for ¥6,000. There are also English-speaking ski schools in the village, bookable online and worth reserving weeks ahead over Christmas and New Year.

• Nozawana: tasting it and watching it washed in hot spring water 1 h

  The pickled leaf that carries the village's name and turns up all over Nagano. It is harvested in late October and early November, and in those weeks you can watch residents rinsing armfuls of leaves in the hot-spring washing basins before they go into brine. Eat it plain, wrapped around rice balls as nozawana oyaki, or fried with rice; bags cost from ¥400-600 in the shops on the main street.

• Off-piste and backcountry with a guide 6 h booking only 5 Jan - 31 Mar

  There are only two legal exits to the backcountry, both at the top of the Yamabiko 4 chair (one left of the A course, one right of the D/E courses); ducking ropes anywhere else is forbidden. Beyond the gates there is no patrol, no avalanche control and no guaranteed rescue, and the resort says so in those words; it asks you to leave an entry report at the patrol station or the Nagasaka information centre. Shovel, probe, transceiver and a partner are not optional, and hiring a local guide (several village operators, from roughly ¥20,000-30,000 per person per day) is the sensible way to do it the first time.

• Ogama, the village's boiling kitchen 0.5 h

  The hottest of the village's thirty springs, uphill towards the slopes: it surfaces at 90°C, far too hot to bathe in, and its five pools serve as the communal kitchen and washhouse where residents blanch vegetables, boil eggs, rinse nozawana greens and soften vines for basket weaving. Only residents go down to the water; visitors watch from outside the railing and, for obvious safety reasons, put nothing in. Free, and early morning is when the work happens and the steam fills the whole lane.

• Onsen manju and street food 1 h

  Several shops on the main street steam their manju over hot-spring water and sell them fresh for ¥100-150 each; there are also nozawana oyaki, temari-dango and black sesame ice cream. This is walking food between baths, and many stalls shut by mid-afternoon, before the crowds come down off the mountain.

• Shinshu soba and mountain cooking 1.5 h

  Nagano is buckwheat country and here soba is eaten in small houses along the main street, ¥1,000-1,500 a bowl, often with mountain-vegetable tempura. Alongside it, the valley's everyday cooking: sanzoku-yaki (marinated fried chicken leg), oyaki dumplings and horse meat. Many places close one day a week and shut between 14:00 and 17:00.

• The Narazawa tengu and the two-and-a-half-metre torch 2 h Narazawa, Iiyama · 45 min only the Saturday and Sunday in mid-September

  The annual festival of Narazawa Shrine, in a hamlet of Iiyama, is one the guidebooks miss: two September nights, from six in the evening, with the dances performed in the neighbourhood street. First the naginata dance, by four children in the third and fourth years of primary school; then the tengu dances; and last the great tengu dance, swinging a torch two and a half metres long. Tradition has it that anyone the sparks fall on gets good luck. The procession goes through the district and ends at the shrine. The rule for the dates is the Saturday and Sunday of mid-September: in 2025 that was the 13th and 14th, in 2026 the 19th and 20th, and the 2027 dates were not published as of October 2026. It is a fifteen to twenty minute walk from Iiyama station. This is a village festival, not a show, and the tourist office asks visitors not to get in the way of the procession, whether watching or taking photographs. Neither of the two sources consulted mentions any tengu figure or effigy: the great tengu is the dance.

• Uenotaira garden and the alpine flowers 3 h only green season; see the calendar

  In summer the Nagasaka gondola climbs to the Uenotaira picnic garden: 3,129 metres of cable and 789 metres of ascent in eight minutes, in glass-walled cabins. Up top are more than 600 species of mountain plants — yamayuri and oniyuri lilies and nikko-kisuge day lilies in July and August, and the pink sweep of fireweed in mid-August — plus a view terrace and a restaurant using valley vegetables. In 2026 it ran 13-21 June and 18 July to 25 October, 9:00-16:00, with some Tuesday-Thursday closures in late August, so check the year's calendar. August and September also bring evening stargazing rides.

• A day trip to Madarao Kogen 7 h Madarao, Iiyama · 30 min only snow season, December to March

  The other ski area in the Iiyama valley, known among locals for its signed and sanctioned tree runs, something Nozawa does not offer in the same way. It is about 30 minutes by car or seasonal shuttle and has its own lift pass: the Nozawa ticket is not valid, though from the 2026-27 season Madarao is on the Ikon Pass, which Nozawa is not. A good call on a day of flat light up high, when the woods ski better than the piste.

• Japan Ski Museum 1 h

  Beside the Hikage gondola base, ¥300: two floors of early skis from Japan and the rest of Asia, posters, Olympic medals won by village athletes, and even Prince Takamatsu's own skis. The episode that explains everything is 1930, when the prince invited the Austrian Hannes Schneider to teach the Arlberg technique here — modern Japanese alpine skiing, and the name of the Schneider run, both start there. The southern part of the resort hosted the biathlon at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

• Kenmeiji temple, birthplace of nozawana 0.75 h

  The village's Soto Zen temple, founded more than four centuries ago, is the documented origin of nozawana: in 1756 its eighth head priest came back from Kyoto with Tennoji turnip seed which, adapting to this valley, became the green that now carries Nozawa's name. The temple still keeps fields inside the grounds and sells its own teradane seed. A small, free precinct five minutes from the centre; in winter you walk in between walls of snow.

• Mountain biking at the resort 3 h booking only summer and autumn, with the lift running

  In summer the resort opens downhill lines and mountain trails from Uenotaira, with gondola uplift and rental at the base; there are also gentle routes along the valley's rice-field lanes and e-bikes in the village. Conditions and prices change from season to season, so confirm with the resort before travelling for this alone.

• Night skiing at Nagasaka 2.5 h only scattered nights from December to March

  From mid-December to late March the Nagasaka run is floodlit on selected nights — usually Saturdays — with the quad chair running until 20:00. The night pass costs ¥2,700 (¥1,600 children) and can be added to a day ticket. It is not every night and the calendar is published week by week, so check on the day; it is cancelled in a blizzard.

• Snowshoeing through the beech woods 3 h booking only 5 Jan - 20 Mar

  The option for non-skiers: half-day guided routes through beech forest and rice terraces buried under two metres of snow, with views over the Iiyama valley. Snowshoe rental at the resort shop is ¥3,500 a day (¥2,600 children) and guided outings are booked in the village or at the Nagasaka information centre.

• Takano Tatsuyuki house museum 1 h

  Takano Tatsuyuki (1876-1947) wrote the words to 'Furusato', 'Oborozukiyo' and 'Momiji', school songs every Japanese person can sing, and spent his last years in Nozawa. His library and villa are now the Oborozukiyo no Yakata Hanzan Bunko museum: ¥300 (¥150 for schoolchildren), 9:00-17:00 with last entry at 16:30, closed Mondays. It explains why half the village hums the same tune when the snow starts.

• The village foot baths 0.5 h

  Several free ashiyu are dotted around the village where you only need to take off your shoes: the answer for anyone who would rather not undress in a communal bath, or who just wants to rest their feet after the slopes. The best is Yurari, on the terrace beside Ogama, which also has a tub for cooking eggs — buy them ready-boiled or drop your own in and wait about twenty minutes. It runs mainly spring to autumn; bring a small towel, as none is provided.

• Tsutsujiyama and the hundred stone Kannon 1.5 h

  The hill just north of the village, right above the Shin-yu bathhouse: a short path lined with a hundred stone Kannon statues that condense the three great pilgrimage circuits of eastern Japan (Bando, Saigoku and Chichibu) into one climb, ending at a small Myoken shrine. From the top you see the Northern Alps and the five peaks of northern Shinshu over the rooftops. In June the whole hill turns red with rengetsutsuji and yamatsutsuji azaleas; free access.

• Yu Road, the heated hill 0.5 h

  A covered corridor of escalators and ramp climbing from the village centre towards the lift base, heated with surplus hot-spring water so it never ices over. In winter it solves the hill with your boots on, and from May to October its terraces fill with planters and flowers tended by residents, with a lookout over the rooftops.

What only happens on specific dates

• Dosojin Matsuri, the fire festival of 15 January 13-15 Jan
• Skiing Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort late November to early May
• First tracks on a storm day 15 Dec - 31 Mar
• The 10 km descent to the village snow permitting, from December to April
• The Yamabiko trees and the powder runs 20 Dec - 31 Mar
• Karasawa and the easy runs with children while the resort is open
• Lessons and equipment rental while the resort is open
• Off-piste and backcountry with a guide 5 Jan - 31 Mar
• A day trip to Madarao Kogen snow season, December to March
• Night skiing at Nagasaka scattered nights from December to March
• Snowshoeing through the beech woods 5 Jan - 20 Mar
• Uenotaira garden and the alpine flowers green season; see the calendar
• Beech forest trails and the Kenashi lookouts from July to early November
• Mountain biking at the resort summer and autumn, with the lift running
• The Narazawa tengu and the two-and-a-half-metre torch the Saturday and Sunday in mid-September

Ready-made routes through Nozawa Onsen

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