Niseko Goshiki Onsen Ryokan

Goshiki sits at around 750 metres in the saddle between Annupuri and Iwaonupuri, and in a storm the last stretch of the Panorama Line feels like driving up into the cloud. The inn opened in 1930 and still has the look of an old Showa mountain lodge. Day visitors pay at the desk and get the two baths in the main building.

The water is the reason to make the drive. It comes out of Iwaonupuri at pH 2.6 and goes into the tubs unheated, sour on the lips and dense with minerals, and on tired legs it tingles. The main bath has indoor tubs and a wide rotenburo facing Annupuri. Karamatsu-no-yu, the second bath, is lined with larch cut when the inn thinned its own forest, and the room smells of resin over the sulphur.

Ride Annupuri until the lifts stop and point the car uphill. On a clear evening the outdoor bath gets the last light on the summit, and when it's dumping you can watch snow land on the rocks around the pool while your shoulders stay hot. In a big storm phone the inn about the road first.