Hachimantai

Hachimantai is a large volcanic plateau straddling Iwate and Akita prefectures, all of it mountainous and thinly populated. The administrative city of Hachimantai, the product of numerous local council mergers, covers the Iwate side. This means both that many places on the Hachimantai plateau are not within city limits, and that there isn't really an obvious "city center". The closest is the stretch between Ōbuke (大更) and Nishine (西根), two of the many merged towns, but the city hall is plunked in the middle of rice paddies further west near Tairadate (平館).

Hachimantai also has many hot springs, which mostly cluster around the 1 Higashi-Hachimantai Onsenkyō (東八幡平温泉郷) area some 15 km west of the town center. Locally, the higashi (east) is often dropped, but there's another cluster of Hachimantai hot springs on the Akita side of the mountains.

Hachimantai city Sightseeing Association (八幡平市観光協会), 1-28 Kashiwadai, ☏ +81 195-78-3500.

Climate:

It snows a lot in Hachimantai: the ski resorts get around 12 meters of the white stuff in an average year. January daytime highs average -3°C, while August climbs up 28°C.

Tourist information site:

The local tourist association has a partly multilingual guide site.

By train:

Hachimantai is served by the JR Hanawa Line between Morioka and Odate. Counterintuitively, the station for Hachimantai town is 1 Ōbuke, while Hachimantai station is the neighboring city of Kazuno. There's also a station called Matsuo-Hachimantai (松尾八幡平駅), in the middle of nowhere some 10 km north of town.

By bus:

Iwate Kenpoku Bus has roughly hourly buses from Morioka to Ōbuke and 2 Tairadate station (1 hr, ¥930), some of which continue west into the mountains through Higashi-Hachimantai Onsenkyō up to Matsukawa Onsen and, in summer only, Toshichi Onsen.