In the Realm of the Snow Monkeys

While planning for our Japan trip, Snow Monkeys were top items on our must-see list. (Snow Monkeys are Japanese Macaques that during the winter relax in onsen—hot springs.)

The interesting thing was that our designated route was chosen before we did any Snow Monkey research. It was therefore fortunate that our stay in Matsumoto made visiting the monkeys into a doable day trip event. (And it did end up taking the entire day.)

Our route was as follows: Japan Railroad from Matsumoto to Nagano. Nippon Dentetsu light rail from Nagano to Yudanaka. Bus from Yudanaka to Kanbayashi Onsen. Hike from Kanbayashi Onsen to Jigokudani Monkey Park.

We basically followed this schedule without any real hitch, except for the not-getting-off-the-bus-at-the-correct-stop issue mentioned earlier, which turned out to be good for photography.

Approaching the Monkey Park elicited the same strange sensation I’ve described before: a place that heretofore only existed in one’s imagination gradually coming into focus. So it was that we found ourselves walking up the road past the high class onsen hotels, seeing the signs pointing the way to the monkey park, hiking through a dark forest and eventually coming to a ramshackle wooden building, paying the entrance fee and entering the domain of the snow monkeys.

We had been worried about sighting monkeys: would they be elusive, hiding in the undergrowth or otherwise unavailable? Well, they were there all right. O yes. I don’t mean that they were aggressive (towards humans, anyway) or in any way annoying. But there were certainly a lot of them running about. I mean, quite a lot. In one case a group of monkeys blocked our trail as they headed for one of the feeding stations.

Photos: Snow Monkey—Japan, 2008; Monkeys on Trail—Japan, 2008; Hali & Monkeys—Japan, 2008