Explore
There is a whole valley
behind the mountain.
Beyond the lifts are onsen villages, a 1,400-year-old temple, cedar avenues, sake breweries and soba worth the drive. Everything here fits into a morning or a day, and reception can arrange the transport.
Fifteen minutes
On the doorstep
野尻湖 Lake Nojiri
A caldera lake fifteen minutes down the hill, ringed by forest with Mount Kurohime behind it. Still and half-frozen in winter; swimming, sailing and a rebuilt marina in summer.
黒姫 Kurohime
Our own town. A restored woodland, a children's storybook museum, and soba grown and cut within a few kilometres.
斑尾 Madarao village
Over the ridge and connected by lift. A handful of good izakaya and ramen spots for the night you want a change of scene.
Half an hour to an hour
A morning out, back for the bath
野沢温泉 Nozawa Onsen · 40–50 min
A working onsen village with thirteen public bath houses maintained by the residents and open to anyone who takes their shoes off and behaves. Steam rises through grates in the street. The best half-day in the region if you only take one.
飯山 Iiyama · 20–30 min
The snow-country town at the foot of the valley — temples, a preserved craft district, and your Shinkansen station, which makes it an easy stop on the way in or out.
戸隠 Togakushi · about an hour
Five Shinto shrines strung along the mountain, linked by an avenue of four-hundred-year-old cedars that is worth the trip on its own in snow. At the end of it, soba Japan counts among its three finest.
赤倉・関温泉 Myoko's onsen towns · 30–40 min
Akakura and Seki Onsen, on the far side of the corridor. Sulphurous, old, unpolished, and genuinely therapeutic after four days on snow.
A full day
Worth giving the whole day to
地獄谷 The snow monkeys · about 1½ hours
Jigokudani, where Japanese macaques sit in a hot spring while it snows on their heads. It is as good as the photographs, and the walk in through the cedar is part of it. One of our nine rooms is named for them, so we are contractually obliged to recommend it.
善光寺 Zenkō-ji & Nagano city · about an hour
A 1,400-year-old temple whose approach street is full of miso, sake and seven-spice merchants who have been there for generations. Eleven minutes by Shinkansen from Iiyama if you would rather not drive.
酒蔵 Sake
Nagano has more breweries than any prefecture but one, and the snow-country water is the reason. Several are close enough for an afternoon, and most will show you the tanks if you call ahead. Reception will call ahead.
雪 Snow, without skis
Snowshoeing on the Shin-etsu Trail above Madarao, through beech forest with nobody else in it. Sledding for children. Or the entirely respectable option of the lounge, the fire, and a book.
Green season · from 2028
Cooler days.
Comfortable nights.
The same valley, six months later: swimming and sailing on Lake Nojiri, hiking the Shin-etsu Trail, cycling the quiet mountain roads, twelve golf courses within reach, and an autumn of red and gold that is one of the reasons people move to Nagano.
Konamori's first year is a winter year — green-season stays open from 2028, and the Journal will carry the news first.
The mountain is why you came. It is not all there is.