Unazuki Onsen

A spa town piped down from the gorge

Unazuki sits at the mouth of the Kurobe Gorge, on a riverside terrace that until the early 20th century was an uninhabited plateau of peach trees called Momohara. When hydroelectric survey crews began pushing into the upper Kurobe in the Taishō era, planners realized the gorge's hot water could be brought down to a flat, buildable site near the future rail terminus. In November 1923 a roughly 7-kilometer wooden pipeline opened, carrying spring water from Kuronagi, upstream along the Kurobe river, down to the new resort. Unazuki Onsen has been pouring from that same upstream source ever since.

The town grew in step with the river's industrial build-out: the narrow-gauge construction railway that became the Kurobe Gorge Railway pushed deeper into the canyon through the 1920s and 30s to service power-plant work, and the postwar Kurobe Dam project drew labor and visitors through the same valley. Today the spa town and the gorge railway share a single station plaza and function as one destination.

Gateway to the Torokko

Unazuki Station is the lower terminus of the Kurobe Gorge Railway, the open-sided narrow-gauge Torokko line that threads about 20 km up the canyon to Keyakidaira. It runs roughly late April through November, weather permitting; autumn-foliage weeks and the snow-walled shoulders of the season are the headline rides. The water in town is colorless and transparent, a weakly alkaline simple onsen that the cooperative markets as bijin-no-yu for its smooth feel on skin. Source water arrives close to 98 C and is cooled before bathing.

A short walk from the station plaza, the Yamabiko-yu free footbath lets you soak feet while you wait for a train. Day-trip extensions from Unazuki include the full Torokko run to Keyakidaira, the Kurobe Dam tour at the head of the valley, and the Selene Museum of Art in the international center, which collects modern Japanese painting of the gorge itself.