Kamikawa, Hokkaido

The road into Sounkyo cuts along the Ishikari River's upper reaches, the canyon walls rising sheer on both sides, waterfalls threading down through basalt columns. This is Kamikawa, pressed deep into the mountains of the Daisetsuzan massif, where the valley floor holds a small hot spring town and the peaks above hold everything else. In winter, the Sounkyo Ice Waterfall Festival fills the gorge with frozen sculptures lit against the dark, a tradition that began in the mid-1970s and now anchors the cold months the way ski runs on Kurodake anchor the deeper snow season.

The town's other persistent identity is ramen. Kamikawa ramen — called Kamikawa ramen locally — is specific enough to have generated its own souvenir economy, from ramen-shaped manju to ramen sablés sold near the onsen district. Alongside this, the Daisetsu Kogen beef from Angus cattle raised in the surrounding farmland, and rainbow trout farmed in the cold mountain streams, give the local food its particular grounding in what the landscape actually produces.

Above the hot spring hotels of Sounkyo Onsen, the Kamikawa Daisetsu Shuzo brewery opened its doors in 2017, pressing sake from the same cold water that feeds the baths and the fish farms. A ropeway climbs toward Kurodake's upper slopes, and the Visitor Center near the onsen keeps information on conditions along the high-plateau hiking routes. The place runs on altitude and cold water, and the rhythm of it — mountain, bath, bowl of noodles — is unhurried and unambiguous.