Zao, Miyagi

The road west from Shiroishi-Zao Station climbs gradually, the orchards giving way to cedar and then to open slope, until the smell of sulfur arrives before any sign announces it. Togatta Onsen sits at the eastern foot of the Zao range, a hot-spring settlement with more than four centuries of use behind it — the kind of place where the bathhouse architecture and the guesthouse facades have absorbed many winters of deep snow without making a show of it.

The town of Zao-machi spreads east from those slopes into farmland that produces nashi pears, momo peaches, and udo in considerable quantity, along with tsurumuraskaki — a climbing vegetable grown under cover in facilities that dot the agricultural plain. The craft tradition here is kokeshi: the lathe-turned wooden dolls that have their own festival, the Zenkoku Dentō Kokeshi Rokuro Matsuri, and a dedicated exhibition hall, the Miyagi Zao Kokeshi-kan, where the turning and painting traditions of the region can be read in the grain and glaze of each figure.

Overhead, Zao-san carries the volcanic caldera known as Okama, and Karuta-dake holds the Karitamine-jinja, whose inner shrine on the summit and outer shrine in the valley below maintain a Shugendo lineage that long predates the onsen town. In winter, Sumikawa Snow Park draws skiers into the upper snowfields. The rest of the year, the bird-observation center called Kotori-hausu tracks the forest's quieter residents, and the orchards along the eastern plain continue their own unhurried rhythm.