A day of bliss – Visiting the Snow Monkeys
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
Me visiting the snow monkeys outside of Shibu Onsen.
Bliss is about all I can say about this first day of February, 2011. Our amazing hosts at Matsuya Ryokan (a Japanese Guesthouse) took me and several others up to the trail head that leads to what I call the monkey pools. A walk through a lovely forest…
Afternoon light on the mountains across from the trail leading up to the monkey pools.
… leads to a spot on the Yokuyu River where hot springs (onsen) are channeled to some pools placed her specifically for the snow monkeys. It’s about an hour so into the mountains from Nagano, Japan, where the 1998 winter Olympics were held.
Ok – let’s just get this out of the way upfront: the “Snow Monkeys” of Jigokudani Yaenkoen are not exactly wild. But they’re not exactly tame either. They are fed by humans (the rangers in this National Park) and they hang out in the pools created for them – but that’s because they started invading hot spring pools that humans were using in the nearby onsen villages back in the 1960s. It was either make them a place of their own, or forever ‘suffer’ their invasion. (Continued after the jump.) (more…)
Category Japan / Tags: Tags: Hot Springs, Japan, Joshin-etsu Kogen National Park, Snow Monkeys, Winter, /
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