Jōzankei

We nearly skipped Jōzankei — it looked, on the map, like just another onsen town too close to the city to bother with. That would have been a mistake. We caught a bus out of Sapporo, wound up into the hills along a river, and within the hour the city had vanished entirely, replaced by a narrow forested gorge with steam rising from between the trees and the Toyohira River running green below. We’d come in October, which turned out to be the whole point: the maples along the gorge were turning, the slopes were going red and copper and gold, and the town sat in the middle of it wrapped in the smell of sulphur and woodsmoke. Lia took one look down into the ravine and said we were staying the night, and we did.

The Gorge in Autumn

Jōzankei is built around a gorge, and in autumn the gorge is the reason to come. The Toyohira River cuts down through the hills here, and the steep sides are thick with maples that turn in October into one of Hokkaidō’s best displays of colour. We walked the Futami Suspension Bridge out over the ravine and stood in the middle of it with red foliage falling away below on both sides down to the green water — a giddy, glowing view that had us both quiet for a while. Trails follow the river past small shrines and the little Futami Pond, and everywhere the light came filtered through burning leaves. Hokkaidō turns earlier than the rest of Japan, so the colour peaks here in the first half of October, when the crowds further south are still waiting.

Foot Baths and Steam

The town runs on hot water, and it doesn’t keep it to itself. Jōzankei is dotted with free public foot baths — ashiyu — set right along the streets and the riverside, and there are hand-warming spring basins too, so you can wander from one to the next steaming your feet between shops. We did exactly that, peeling off boots and socks at a riverside foot bath as the afternoon cooled, the hot water working up through us while the gorge glowed across the water. The town’s guardian is a kappa, the river-imp of Japanese folklore, and little kappa statues turn up all over — on bridges, by the baths, tucked in corners — a cheerful running joke that gives the place its character. Of course there are full onsen too, in every inn, for the proper long soak after a day outside.

An Easy Mountain Escape

What makes Jōzankei special is not that it’s remote but that it isn’t — this is the mountains made easy, a genuine forest gorge you can reach from a Sapporo hotel breakfast in an hour. Beyond the town the road climbs on toward the Hoheikyo Dam, where in autumn a shuttle runs to a viewpoint over the reservoir ringed in colour, and Lake Sapporo sits blue in the hills. Come winter the same slopes turn to ski country and the onsen become the warm reward at the end of a cold day. We used it exactly as the Sapporo locals do — as the nearest place to swap the city for trees, water, and steam without a long journey — and it did the job perfectly, sending us back to town loose-limbed and smelling faintly of sulphur.

Getting There

Jōzankei’s great advantage is how close it is: it sits in the mountains just southwest of Sapporo, and getting there is genuinely easy. Direct buses run from Sapporo Station out to the onsen town in a little over an hour, and many of the inns also run their own shuttle services for overnight guests. If you’re driving, it’s a short scenic run up along the river, and a car opens up the dam viewpoint and lakes beyond the town. The autumn foliage, which peaks in early-to-mid October here, is the standout season, but the onsen run year round — snowy and steaming in winter, green and cool in summer. Even as a half-day trip from the city it’s worth the ride.