[ DISCOVERY · THE DISPATCH ]

The Hot Springs Hidden in the Snow Where Monkeys Get There First

Steam rising off a freezing valley, snow on the rocks, and a macaque giving me a look that said I was sitting in his seat. Here is where to find wild hot springs in the snow, and how to soak without ruining it for everyone.

Wild hot springs in the snow, where the monkeys get there first

The first wild hot spring I ever sat in, in the snow, I wasn’t even alone in it. There was a Japanese macaque about a metre to my left, eyes half shut, steam curling off his soaked fur, looking like a tiny exhausted businessman in a sauna. He opened one eye, clocked me, decided I wasn’t worth the energy, and went back to dozing. That was Jigokudani. That was the moment I got completely, permanently hooked on wild hot springs in the snow.

There’s something deeply silly and deeply right about it. It’s freezing — your hair freezes, your towel freezes, the air bites — and yet from the neck down you’re in water hot enough to turn you pink. Your body cannot make sense of it. And neither, apparently, can the monkeys, which is the whole reason they pile in.

So let me take you to the good ones.

Let’s get this out of the way: the famous monkey pool at Jigokudani in Nagano is not actually for humans. You don’t get in it. You watch the snow monkeys (Japanese macaques, the only primates besides us daft enough to bathe in hot springs) wallow about while you stand on the snowy bank getting jealous.

But — and this is the bit people miss — the whole valley is riddled with proper onsen towns where you absolutely can soak. Shibu Onsen is a fifteen-minute walk away, a tiny old street of wooden inns with nine public bathhouses. Stay overnight at a ryokan and you get a key to all nine. I did the loop at about 9pm with snow falling, going bath to bath in a yukata and getas, clattering down the empty street like a lunatic. Best night of that whole trip.

The walk in is about 1.6km through forest and it ices over, so wear actual grippy boots, not your cute town shoes. I saw at least three people go down hard.

Iceland is the place for wild, unmanicured, often free hot springs in genuinely arctic snow. Reykjadalur (“Steam Valley”) near Hveragerði is the classic — a 45-minute uphill hike and then a whole hot river you can just lie down in. You pick your temperature by moving upstream (hotter) or down (cooler). In winter the surrounding hills are white and the water steams like the ground is breathing.

It is not the secret it once was. There are wooden boardwalks and little modesty screens now. But early morning in February, with frost on the grass and barely anyone about, it still feels like getting away with something.

The one I’d actually send you to instead is Hrunalaug, a tiny stone-walled pool on private farmland near Flúðir. It fits maybe six people. There’s an honesty box (pay it — about 1,000 ISK, don’t be the person who ruins it). And alot of the time, in winter, you’ll have it to yourself with the snow coming down. It’s small and rough and perfect.

If hiking through snow to your soak sounds like effort, the Banff Upper Hot Springs in Canada are the opposite end. It’s a developed pool, you pay, there’s a building. But the setting — 1,585m up with the snowy peaks of the Rockies stacked right behind you, your shoulders steaming while it actively snows on your head — is hard to beat for zero effort. Go after dark when the day skiers have gone home and the pool empties out.

Not wild, exactly. But sometimes you want the hot water without the 90-minute frozen march, and there’s no shame in that.

Wild springs are not regulated. Some are scalding — genuinely, dangerously hot at the source. Test before you commit a leg. In Iceland especially, never get into water you haven’t checked, because some of those pretty blue pools will cook you, and people have died being daft about it.

Bring a towel that you’ve made peace with freezing solid. Change fast. The few minutes between water and clothes are the worst part of the whole experience and there is no graceful way to do it. You will hop. You will swear. It’s fine.

And about the monkeys, because I know that’s why half of you are here: don’t touch them, don’t feed them, don’t get between a mother and her baby. They tolerate us. That’s not the same as wanting us there. The whole magic of that pool is that they’re being entirely themselves, ignoring you completely, and the second you make it about you it’s gone.

I still think about that first macaque sometimes. The one-eyed look. The complete indifference. I’d been on planes and trains and an icy hike to get to that valley and to him I was just weather. Honestly? Kind of loved that.

Go for the snow monkeys. Stay for the river you can lie down in. Pay the honesty box.

This article contains affiliate links marked rel="sponsored". We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.