Masutomi Onsen — Spring Water Analysis, Temperature and Snowfall
増富温泉 · Yamanashi
Masutomi Onsen (増富温泉) is a nationally designated onsen town in Yamanashi. We measured how much snow its winters bring, using the same method as for the 3,069 ski areas on this site.
How this place came to be
Inside Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park, under Mt. Mizugaki (2,230 m) and Mt. Kinpu (2,599 m). The ground here was thrust up about ten million years ago, and erosion has left minerals exposed in the rock.
The spring is said to have been found three separate times. First in the 4th century, when Yamato Takeru is supposed to have come across it on his eastern campaign; a shrine was later built on the spot. Second in the 16th century, when Takeda Shingen struck it while working a gold mine, and sent men wounded at Kawanakajima — and miners from his own diggings — here to recover. That is why it is called one of Shingen's hidden baths.
The third time was modern. In 1914 the founder of an inn moved his business here, and his brother, living in America, told him the water held an unusual amount of radium. It became known as Japan's first radium spring. In 1938 a University of Tokyo chemist confirmed the radon reading. The writers Kyoshi Takahama and Masuji Ibuse came regularly.
At the fire festival for the spring's deity, people rub a paper figure against whatever part of them hurts, and burn it before the shrine.
Forest covers 95% of the district. The population, 2,650 in 1955, is now 450 (2016), 64% of them elderly, with no hospital and no school. About 170,000 people visit each year; 30,000 of them stay the night.
Sources: 環境省 増富温泉 国民保養温泉地計画書
Snowfall in winter
| Per season | 69 cm |
| Rank | 49 of 77 ranked onsen |
| Within prefecture | 1 of 2 in Yamanashi |
| Against the median of 77 | -49 cm median 118 cm |
| Winter to winter | 127 cm 24–151 cm, leanest to deepest of twelve |
Find a place to stay · Open in maps
"Find a place to stay" searches Rakuten Travel and contains advertising; we may earn a commission on bookings made through it. The snowfall figures and ranking are calculated independently of that.
We do not link to an official site. We have not verified URLs for all 79 towns, and guessing would send you somewhere wrong. They will be added once checked.
More places to look
Just the bath
Day passes for hot springs are sold through Asoview. Japanese only.
The list covers the whole prefecture — it cannot be narrowed to this town.
Hot springs nearby, as analysed
9 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 3 km of the centre of this onsen town, nearest first.
| Source | Distance | Temperature | pH | Type | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 増富温泉観光ホテル金泉閣 | 0.4 km | 31.1℃ lukewarm | 6.2 neutral | chloride, carbon dioxide | 2000 |
| 増富温泉不老閣(ボーリング井) | 0.4 km | 32.5℃ lukewarm | 6.3 neutral | chloride, radioactive (radon) | 1969 |
| 増富温泉不老閣(岩風呂) | 0.4 km | 21.1℃ cold | 6.4 neutral | chloride, radioactive (radon) | 1969 |
| 増富温泉不老閣(源泉) | 0.4 km | 21.5℃ cold | 5.3 mildly acidic | chloride, radioactive (radon) | 1954 |
| 増富温泉不老閣(自然湧出泉) | 0.4 km | 18.8℃ cold | 5.9 mildly acidic | chloride, sulphate, carbon dioxide, radioactive (radon) | 1969 |
These are analyses of hot spring sources, not a list of baths you can visit. They date from 1910 to 2005, many from decades ago, so today’s temperature and chemistry may differ. Names are as recorded in Japanese. Temperature and pH bands follow Japan’s standard for analysing hot springs.
Source: processed from the hot spring analysis data in the Geothermal Information Database (GRES-DB), Geological Survey of Japan, AIST
Worth seeing nearby
Places within 20 km of this onsen town, chosen from those most read about on Wikipedia, favouring places with an English Wikipedia article, and listed nearest first.
| Place | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Mount Mizugaki瑞牆山 | Mountain | 6.3 km |
| Mount Kinpu金峰山 (山梨県・長野県) | Mountain | 8.5 km |
| Nobeyama radio observatory野辺山宇宙電波観測所 | Landmark | 10.1 km |
| Nobeyama Station野辺山駅 | Landmark | 11.3 km |
| Shinpu Castle新府城 | Historic site | 17.2 km |
| Southern Yatsugatake Volcanic Group八ヶ岳 | Nature | 18.7 km |
Based on the Japanese Wikipedia lists of sights in each prefecture, as compiled in travel-log-data (CC BY-SA 4.0). English names from Wikidata (CC0). The content of this section is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Ski areas nearby
Up to five within 40 km, straight-line, nearest first. Quality rank is out of the 397 Japanese ski areas.
| Ski area | Distance | Quality rank |
|---|---|---|
| Chateraise Ski Valley Nobeyama | 8 km | 323 of 397 |
| Sun Meadows Kiyosato Ski Area | 14 km | 305 of 397 |
| Fujimi Kougen Snow Resort | 21 km | 326 of 397 |
| Chateraise Ski Valley Koumi | 24 km | 295 of 397 |
| Yachiho Kōgen Ski Resort | 27 km | 248 of 397 |
These snowfall figures are estimates
The snowfall shown here is an estimate produced by a weather model, not a record of what actually fell.
We compared it against 63 Japan Meteorological Agency weather stations to see how far off it is. On average it comes to about six tenths of the real figure — it runs low. And it runs low by different amounts in different places: some read barely a third of what was measured, others match almost exactly. Mountains tend to read lowest.
We tried scaling everything up by a fixed amount to correct for it. It barely helped, because the error differs from place to place.
So treat these numbers as a guide to roughly where somewhere sits, not a precise figure. There is no meaning in the gap between first and second, or between 30th and 35th. Large differences between regions are real and can be read as they are.
We considered correcting the figures against the observations. But this ranking covers 3,069 ski areas across ten countries, and only Japan can be checked against weather stations. Correcting Japan alone would lift Japanese resorts above the Alps and North America with nothing behind it. Every place here is measured the same way instead.
Where a nearby weather station can be used, we print what it actually recorded on that ski area's own page.