Makukawa Onsen Mitoya Rokan

Two separate springs feed the baths at Mitoya: one runs milky white, the other a soft green-brown, both kept flowing straight through rather than reheated. The gender-separated indoor bath and rotenburo carry drifting white yunohana (湯の花) flakes and a faint sulfur note. A mixed-bathing view bath, women-only from 4 to 8pm, has a big tub built from two hollowed hinoki (檜) logs and looks straight out over the forest. A third bath sits right on the mountain stream with its own milky sulfur water, though it's currently closed for repairs. The inn itself is an old, plain building that sits at about 1,300 meters on the shoulder of Mt. Azuma in Bandai-Asahi National Park, a quiet retreat further into the mountains than Tsuchiyu Onsen itself, surrounded by beech forest that's never been logged. It's the kind of place regulars call a real secluded hideaway rather than a resort: home-style cooking from the host, a narrow mountain road in, and a yearly shutdown under heavy snow from around mid-November to Golden Week.