[Access] About 10 minutes by car from Minakami IC
[Webpage] Tanigawa Onsen Tourism Association Yu Therme Tanigawa
After climbing Mt. Tanigawa, the first place that came to my mind when I thought about which hot spring to stop by was Minakami Onsen. It’s a relatively large hot spring town, so I thought it would be interesting to walk around. But when I was looking at the map, I suddenly noticed Tanigawa Onsen. I had never been to there before, even though I used to visit this area often. So I decided to drop by Yu Therme Tanigawa in Tanigawa Onsen.
Yu Therme Tanigawa is a day trip hot spring facility with three different sources. Those are Hotaru-no-yu (weak alkaline simple hot spring – source temperature: 39 degrees Celsius), Kajika-no-yu (calcium sodium sulfate hot spring), and Fudo-no-yu (weak alkaline simple hot spring – source temperature: 56 degrees Celsius) which are used for indoor bath. And the open-air bath uses a mixture of Fudo-no-yu and Kajika-no-yu. Unfortunately, Kajika-no-yu was not available today.
The greenery was pleasant at open-air bath. And Hotaru-no-yu inside was using the source as is (without heating), and I could relax in it like forever with its perfect level of lukewarmness. It was indeed pleasant by switching between warm Fudo-no-yu and lukewarm Hotaru-no-yu. After the bath, I felt really refreshed.
At Yu Therme Tanigawa, they were selling Akebi, which I haven’t seen in a while. I didn’t buy it because it looked a bit strange and I couldn’t imagine what it tasted like, but later I found out that it was a simple sweet fruit and I should have bought it and tried it…
Today, I took the ropeway up to Tenjin-daira, and from there I climbed up Mt. Tanigawa to reach two peaks, Toma-no-mimi and Oki-no-mimi. Climbing up from the bottom would be quite tough, but once you get up to Tenjin-daira, it’s relatively easy. However, even so, the green mountains spread out in front of me and I got excited.
It was a beautiful day, and the view from the ridgeline was amazing. So I could not help stopping several times to enjoy this great view. However, the trail was narrow, so it would be tough because of too many people during the autumn season when beautiful autumn color can be seen. It was a very fulfilling day to climb the two peaks of Mt. Tanigawa, enjoy the scenery, and enjoy a nice hot spring on the way back!