Akakura Kanko Hotel

The hotel opened in 1937 at about 1,000 metres on the slopes of Mt. Myoko, and the main building still has its old dining room and a fireplace that gets lit in winter. Two newer wings went up in 2009 and 2016, and those are where the rooms with their own open-air onsen tubs sit, most of them facing Lake Nojiri. There are 69 rooms in all.

You walk out of the ski locker room straight onto Akakura Kanko Resort, so this is the one hotel in town where you can ski to the door. The hotel rents skis and boards to guests from that same locker room. From the top of the resort at 1,500 metres there is a four-kilometre run back down.

The baths run on sulphur-smelling water piped two kilometres from Kita-Jigokudani on Mt. Myoko, and none of it is recirculated. A family bath with the same water can be booked by the hour for 50 minutes at a time, free for guests. Dinner is French in the old dining room or a buffet, and the hotel does not serve lunch in the restaurant, though the café terrace does from 11:00 to 14:00.