Iwama Onsen Motoyu

The source of Iwama Onsen, high in the Hakusan mountains above the Nakanokawa river. Hot water wells up all along the riverbank here, and it feeds both Shin-Iwama Onsen and Ichirino Onsen further down the valley. It sits about an hour's walk up a gently climbing forest road from Yamazaki Ryokan, and a mountain trail drops from it to the Iwama geyser cones, mineral towers built up by the spring and protected as a Special Natural Monument. There is no bath here: nothing has been built to soak in, so this is a place to see the spring, not to bathe.