Shikishima Jozankei Bettei

A ten-room inn built into the cliff slope above the Toyohira River in Jozankei, about 45 minutes by car from central Sapporo. Seven of the ten rooms face the river. Six room types run from a 25 m² double, the room sold on solo-traveller plans, to a 66 m² detached suite. All rooms are non-smoking.

The water is a sodium chloride spring that the inn says goes by a second name, 熱の湯, the water of heat, for the way it warms you from the core. It calls the baths 源泉かけ流し, fed straight from the source, and the listing data records water being added. There are two bathhouses, both looking onto the river: a cypress bath with a tub and a jacuzzi, and a rock bath. Men and women swap overnight, so a single night gets you both. Bathing runs 15:00–24:00 and 6:00–10:00. There is no sauna and no day-use bathing. Whether the rock bath has an open-air section is unsettled: the inn’s own site says it does, while its facility listings record no open-air bath at all.

Dinner is a seasonal Hokkaido course the kitchen calls 和洋創作会席, creative kaiseki drawing on Japanese and Western cooking. Both meals are served in the river-facing restaurant. Dinner starts at 18:00 or 18:30, the latter the last seating; breakfast at 7:30 or 8:00, booked ahead.

Check-in is 15:00–18:00, check-out 11:00, and the door is locked at 23:30. Parking is free. A covered walkway and 23 steps descend from the car park to the entrance, and a sloped underground passage leads to the baths; both have handrails.