Ohjirakawa Open-Air Bath

The Ohjirakawa Open-Air Bath is a village-run outdoor hot spring in the Ohjirakawa area of Hakusan National Park, in Hirase Ohjirakawa, Shirakawa Village, Ono District, Gifu Prefecture. It sits on the shore of the Ohjirakawa Dam reservoir, roughly 13 kilometres up Prefectural Route 451 (the Hakusan Park Line) from the Hirase hot spring hamlet, and looks straight out over Lake Hakusui, whose sulfur content gives it a striking emerald green colour. Nearby are the 72-metre Shiramizu Falls, old-growth beech and oak forest, and the Hirase trailhead, the Gifu-side route up Mount Hakusan, which has long made this bath a place for climbers to wash off the descent. Because the access road closes for winter, bathing is possible only for a few months, generally from early June to late October.

The water comes from a blend of the Ohjirakawa No. 2 and No. 3 sources, classified as a sulfur-bearing sodium chloride spring. The posted analysis gives the blended source a temperature of 68.8 degrees Celsius and a pH of 8.1, making it an alkaline, hypotonic, high-temperature spring. It is clear and colourless with a faint salinity, a light hydrogen sulfide smell and a slight slipperiness on the skin. Shirakawa Village describes the bath as free-flowing, with water pouring continuously over the rim. Its sulfur content earned it the local nickname of a spring that blesses couples with children.

There are separate baths for men and women, each with one open-air tub and its own changing room fitted with shelves, baskets and a washbasin. There are no showers, and soap and shampoo are prohibited to protect the lake. Admission is 500 yen for adults and 200 yen for children, collected as a cleaning contribution. Opening hours are 8:30 to 17:00, extended to 18:00 in midsummer. The bath is closed on Thursday mornings for cleaning, and from September onward cleaning takes up every morning, so opening is pushed back to 13:00. Between 8:30 and 11:00 and again from 16:00 to 18:00 the bath is unstaffed.