Qualla: Jigokudani Monkey Park: Where Macaques Invented the Spa Day

Jigokudani Monkey Park: Where Macaques Invented the Spa Day: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Abasaa, Public domain. Steam hisses from cracks in the frozen ground. Boiling water seeps through rock crevices, pooling into turquoise basins ringed by snowdrifts. The valley earned its name honestly: Jigokudani means "Hell's Valley" in Japanese, a reference to the volcanic vents, steep cliffs, and hostile forests that make this gorge in Nagano Prefecture look like something out of a netherworld. But every winter, the residents of this particular hell look entirely at peace. Dozens of Japanese macaques -- rust-furred, pink-faced, utterly unbothered -- sit chin-deep in the hot springs, grooming each other, dozing, and occasionally closing their eyes with an expression that anyone who has ever sunk into a hot bath will recognize immediately.

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Image: Abasaa | Public domain

Jigokudani Monkey Park: Where Macaques Invented the Spa Day: Refugees from the Ski Slopes

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arnaud Malon, CC BY 2.0. The macaques were not always here. Through the 1950s, troops of Japanese macaques lived higher in the mountains around Shiga Kogen, foraging through forests that had sheltered them for centuries. Then the ski resorts arrived. Forest clearing and resort development pushed the monk...

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Image: Arnaud Malon | CC BY 2.0

Jigokudani Monkey Park: Where Macaques Invented the Spa Day: The Bathers of Hell's Valley

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greg Schechter from San Francisco, USA, CC BY 2.0. What makes Jigokudani famous is not just that monkeys bathe -- it is how they bathe. The macaques submerge themselves slowly, settling into the steaming pools with deliberate calm while snow accumulates on the fur of their heads and shoulders. They groom each other in the water, ...

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Image: Greg Schechter from San Francisco, USA | CC BY 2.0

Jigokudani Monkey Park: Where Macaques Invented the Spa Day: Four Months Under Snow

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MaedaAkihiko, CC BY-SA 4.0. Snow covers the ground at Jigokudani for four months each year. The park sits in the valley of the Yokoyu River in northern Nagano Prefecture, within the larger Joshinetsu Kogen National Park. Reaching it requires a roughly thirty-minute walk along a narrow forest trail -- no roa...

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Image: MaedaAkihiko | CC BY-SA 4.0

Jigokudani Monkey Park: Where Macaques Invented the Spa Day: Not the Northernmost, But the Most Famous

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Yosemite, CC BY-SA 3.0. Japanese macaques hold the distinction of being the northernmost-living nonhuman primates on Earth, but Jigokudani's troop does not hold that specific record. The true northern limit of macaque habitat lies on the Shimokita Peninsula, at the northern tip of Honshu island, roughly...

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Image: Yosemite | CC BY-SA 3.0