Noboribetsu Jigokudani Walk this “hell where demons dwell” before your soak

I stopped by the railing and heard a low rumble beneath the wind. It wasn’t the soft rustle of leaves; it seemed to go on and on from somewhere at the bottom of the valley. I raised one hand to my ear and turned toward the strongest plume of steam. The sound seemed a little closer.

It was around 9 in the morning on a late-May day. My spring trip around Hokkaido was nearly over, and of course I chose Noboribetsu for my last hot-spring stop. From Noboribetsu-Higashi IC, it was about 10 minutes up the slope toward the hot-spring district. I cracked the window, and the smell of sulfur drifted in. “Ah, here I am again,” I thought. I’d been here in summer, autumn and winter, but this was my first time seeing Jigokudani surrounded by fresh green leaves.

With no one beside me, I could listen without saying a word. Whenever the wind died down, the sound from the valley floor seemed to draw a little closer. I closed my eyes; it felt as if something beneath my feet were moving without pause. Even at the end of May, the morning breeze in the valley was still chilly, and I was glad I’d brought my cream-colored coat. The slope that had been covered in snow when I came in winter was now bare, its brown rock exposed. It was the same valley, but even the sound seemed different.

Jigokudani in front of me was a volcanic crater about 450 m across, left by an eruption of Mount Hiyoriyama. It covers about 11 ha. The bubbling, boiling landscape was said to resemble “a hell where demons dwell,” which is how the valley got its name. I walked along the railing, but the steam vents at the far end never seemed to get any closer. I felt the valley’s vastness in my legs before the numbers could tell me anything. Resting one hand on the log rail, I traced one plume of white steam all the way into the sky with my index finger. Beyond my fingertip, it changed shape and dissolved into the air.

I looked up at the forest around the valley, too. The primeval forest around Jigokudani was designated a national natural monument in 1924. That forest has been protected for more than 100 years, and it reaches right up to the steam. Each time a plume drifted past, the trees behind it seemed to grow closer, then farther away. The fresh young leaves looked bright beyond the white steam.

On my way back along the trail, I checked that Wakasaimo Honpo’s Noboribetsu East shop was next on my list. Manju after the bath, of course. I’d broken that rule once in the snowy valley this winter, so this time I meant to stick to it. Still, I don’t quite trust myself not to give in to that sweet smell every time I pass the shop.

When the car park came into view, I looked back one last time. The steam was still wavering white as it rose into the sky. It felt like just the right sound to end a spring trip on. That night, the manju I had after my bath tasted sweeter than usual, maybe because I’d kept my rule. With the scent of brown sugar came the memory of that low rumble in the valley.