Japan - Walking Through Hell Valley At Noboribetsu

Hello there!

Having completed my earlier travel posts on Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Hokkaido) and Maldives, I saw that Worldmappin had the Winter Challenge #winterchallenge, so I thought I should give it a shot! Being in a country that is summer all year round, I went through some of previous overseas trips for some winter stuff, and I managed to find some interesting stuff!

This was a trip I took in 2018 and during my visit to the area of Sapporo and Hokkaido, I chanced upon an interesting place to visit nearby and that's the city of Noboribetsu! It's so coincidental that I am writing about Japan again, and it actually goes to show that there's so much beautiful sights across different seasons in Japan.

With the efficiency of their trains in Japan, we made our way from Sapporo to Noboribetsu and the journey took slightly less than 2 hours. And finally we arrived at the train station!

Noboribetsu is well known for its natural hot springs (onsens) because of its mountainous landscape and there's a famous tourist attraction, which is the Jigokudani, translated to Hell Valley. This area is actually a volcanic crater, so with the snow, I was excited to see how it would look like!

We reached before noon and went for a soak in one of the local onsens. I must say the experience was very surreal because I experienced hot and freezing cold simultaneously. There was an open air area, where you could submerge your body in the onsen waters, but the upper half of your body would still be above the water. And it was even more amazing that snow was falling and I could feel and see the snowflakes land on me. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, I didn't have any photos of the onsen. Hehe.

After the onsen experience, we headed to the Hell Valley and on the way there, the scenery was just so amazing. Maybe this was my first trip experiencing snow, it's so breathtaking to see snow blending so well together with nature.

Even though it was quite crowded (which you couldn't tell from the photos), the pathways were well marked and there were signs like these to tell visitors not to venture out of the marked paths. Hence it was easy to walk and explore the area, except that it was cold as expected.

Finally we reached the "entrance" of Hell Valley. As the area was open space, I guess this was more of a signboard for visitors to know they were in the right place.

As I was making my way through the area, it felt like a real life Geography lesson, looking at the mountains, the craters, the rock formations, the misty snow.

Another sign asking visitors not to go past the wooden barriers!

We went deeper into the valley and the scenery just got more and more beautiful. It's such a joy to see these stuff - and these sights alone made my 2 hour train journey worth it!

This was how the path looked like as we walked further in the valley. Very safe.

We finally came to the end where there was an extremely hot pond beneath. The sign said that the water is 80 degrees Celsius and there could be intermittent geyser activity. We didn't see anything during our time there but given that the water temperature is so hot, it's probably not a good idea to stay too near as well.

And we were done with Hell Valley. On our way back to the train station, we also saw these Demons. Noboribetsu is also known for their activities involving the "demons".

The entire path was full of snow and I thought this was a nice sight too.

And we were back at the train station, waiting for our train for our 2 hour journey back to the city.

That summed up my interesting and satisfying visit to Noboribetsu and their main attraction Hell Valley. It was a really big treat for my eyes to be able to witness this scenery and the snow elevated the appearance for sure.

Have you been to Noboribetsu before? Let me know in the comments below!

Stay tuned for more adventures as part of my participation in the #winterchallenge!

Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!