倶多楽・登別火山群 - Noboribetsu Onsen & Lake Kuttara - 10/18-19/2022

After driving around 3+ hours from Esan prefectural park on 10/17, I finally arrived in the onsen town of Noboribetsu that evening. The onsen of Noboribetsu are famous for not only their bounty but also their variety. Natural spring waters flow down from Jigokudani (Hell Valley), resulting in naturally created baths and nine types of water.

That evening I stayed at a rather large onsen called Takimotokan which I booked fairly last minute via Booking.com. Although a quite expansive onsen catering to both solo, group, and family travelers, I was very impressed by the service, the overall accommodations and the expansive "roman-style" bath area.

The next morning, I woke up early to start my day on a few short hikes around the Jigokudani which you can see more of in my YouTube video and images, I will be posting later. After exploring this area for about 2 hours (there are several short hiking trails) and since I was already packed, I decided to take the drive around to Lake Kuttara which is the giant (almost perfectly cylindrical) caldera lake whose activity feeds areas like Noboribetsu.

The north road coming out of the Jigokudani area was closed so I had to drive around to the south entrance and drive down into the lake area from there...and this is where I was very surprised. Once arriving, sadly there was an old lodge that was in somewhat disrepair. I am guessing in its better days it served as boat rental, lodge, restaurant and more. Sadly, there was just one guy there burning some wood in the area between the lodge and the lake.

Although empty, it was very peaceful and quiet there. I was able to locate a hiking trail however it was also overgrown and not maintained so did not attempt any actual hikes in this area and after about 30 minutes staring off into the lake, I decided to depart to the next volcano Usuzan.