Kawamata Onsen

A small wild bath sitting beside a mountain stream in the hills behind Noboribetsu, originally discovered in 1908 and briefly home to an inn that washed away in a 1956 typhoon. The pool is roughly the size of a tatami mat, with warm water around 34°C bubbling up from the bottom and a faint sulfur smell. Getting there involves a few kilometers of forest road and multiple stream crossings, the journey is genuinely part of the experience.