Yutagawa Onsen Hayato Ryokan

Hayato Ryokan is a single inn set at the foot of Mount Kinbo in the Yutagawa Onsen hot spring hamlet of Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. Yutagawa Onsen is said to have been discovered in the year 712, when an injured white heron was seen healing its wounds in the water, earning it the names "Bath of the White Heron" and "Tsuruoka's inner parlor." It flourished as a curative bathing ground of the Shonai domain. Hayato Ryokan is a long-established inn with over three hundred years of history, known as a lodging tied to the Shincho-gumi during the Boshin War at the close of the Edo period.

The spring is a sodium-calcium sulfate hot spring with a pH of 8.6 and a source temperature of 42.2 degrees Celsius. Since 1936 the hamlet has centrally managed a single source and distributed it to every inn. The colorless, odorless water is served free-flowing, with no added water, no reheating, and no recirculation. As a sulfate spring said to benefit cuts, chronic skin conditions, and arteriosclerosis, it has a notably smooth, silky feel on the skin.

The inn is small, with just eight guest rooms and a capacity of about fifty guests, and its baths are indoor baths separated by gender, with no open-air bath. Guests are served a Japanese kaiseki meal centered on local Shonai cuisine made from seasonal ingredients. Day-use bathing is accepted without reservation for 500 yen per adult, available from 10:00 to 20:00, and the inn offers 20 free parking spaces.