Hijiori Onsen Maruya Ryokan

Maruya Ryokan stands in the hot-spring village of Hijiori, tucked into a caldera valley where the river makes a sharp bend, in Minamiyama, Okura Village, Mogami District, Yamagata Prefecture. Founded in 1868, the first year of the Meiji era, it looks back on more than 150 years of innkeeping. Hijiori Onsen itself claims 1,200 years of history: legend holds that in 807 a traveller named Genno from Bungo Province was shown the healing water by an aged monk who had mended a broken elbow, giving the spring its name. In the Edo period the village prospered as a gateway for pilgrims bound for the Three Mountains of Dewa. Maruya is a member of the Japan Association of Secluded Hot Spring Inns and keeps just seven rooms in a three-storey wooden building.

The water is piped from Hijiori's cooperative sources No. 2 and No. 3/5, and is classified as a sodium chloride-bicarbonate spring, hypotonic, neutral and hot. Because the sources emerge at 73.55C and 86.4C, a small amount of cold water is added, but the bath is never reheated, recirculated or filtered. The open-air bath and the hinoki box bath in the Gassan guest room are served at 100 percent undiluted free-flowing spring water. With roughly 50 litres a minute in use, the supply is generous, and the salt-rich water is known locally as an atatamari-no-yu, a bath that holds warmth in the body, said to ease nerve pain, muscle and joint pain, poor circulation and fatigue.

There are four bathing rooms. Hinoki-no-yu, lined with Japanese cypress, and Hiba-no-yu, lined with Aomori hiba and paired with an open-air bath, alternate between men and women at dinner time. A private bath called Kozuru-no-yu and a hiba footbath beside the entrance complete the line-up. Rates run from 17,970 to 33,420 yen per person with two meals when two share a room, with check-in at 15:00, check-out at 10:00 and free parking for seven cars. Day-trip bathing is not currently accepted; the village bathhouse Kami-no-yu, fed by a different spring, stands directly opposite the inn.