In Hokuto, Yamanashi, on a stretch of wild land, there is a single sauna. There is no house anywhere near it. The cold bath is the stream that runs just beside it — around fourteen degrees in spring, eighteen in summer, eight in winter, clear to the very bottom. The fire passes a hundred degrees. The place is never disclosed. It is not on any map. The only way to know it is to be invited.
It does not appear in search.
It is not on the map.
No notifications sound; nothing is recommended.
There is only fire, hot water, and the sound of the stream.
Here, nothing is optimised.
Here, there are no notifications.
The information you carry in, you leave behind.
Brush the earth from your feet.
Move a stone in the stream; dam the flow, a little.
Shallow today. Cold today.
Light the fire. The scent of smoke settles in.
In the forest, find a place to set a chair.
That alone is enough.
A roof was pitched between the sauna and the open air. Rain or snow, the session simply continues.
You cannot choose the weather. So it was arranged that you never have to.
Fallen trees are cut where they lie. Bucked, split, stacked. Nothing is carried in from outside.
Standing trees are left alone. Nothing is taken from the forest — only what the forest has already let go.
Before the day of the fire, there is a day for the fire.
A clear stream, always running.
▶ Tap to play — with sound
One hose, run upstream. No pump. The fall of the land does the work.
The water keeps changing while you sit in it. It is not standing water.
Used water is not returned to the stream. It drains to a soakaway and goes back through the soil. The stream is left as it was found.
The season sets the temperature. We do not.
No house stands within five hundred metres. Which means that whatever enters this stream, there is no one above us to dilute it. This is the top.
No soap in the stream. Nothing is washed in it. Used water drains to a soakaway and returns through the soil. Ash is not tipped in. What is carried in is carried out.
Stones are not moved. Pools are not filled. If you dam it, you undam it on the way out. The shape you made in half a day took the stream a few hundred years.
The water that leaves here runs into the Kamanashi, becomes the Fuji River, and reaches Suruga Bay. Cut a corner, and it travels a hundred kilometres.
The water is only borrowed.
Besides fire and water, nothing has been prepared.
The rest is how you spend this land — that is all.
Play in the stream. Fish. Build a fire and grill over charcoal.
Carve wood, touch the earth. The stream will chill your drinks. Sometimes, do nothing.
There is no house nearby. So you can play any music, at any volume. No one is troubled; no one is watching. Bring your pet, too. Being a real stream, there are river crabs to play with. None of this is possible where there are people, or with manufactured water.
It is self-service, so there are no set hours.
Light the fire at noon, or stay through the night. Come when you like, stay as long as you like.
There is no prescribed way to spend it. No limit to how you use it.
In nature, the stress hormone falls. The body tilts from tension toward rest. Studies of forest environments have confirmed it, again and again.
Stay for an hour or so, and worn attention begins to recover. On warm days and cold days alike, the effect is said to hold.
Research on solitude is clear: when a person feels safe, being alone restores more deeply than being in company.
The key is safety. So YUUKA does not leave solitude to chance. On a foundation of screening, reservation, and a line always open, we set a stillness with no one within 500 meters.
There is only one building. The time you book is never shared with another group.
The crackle of fire. The murmur of the stream. Natural sound stirs the nerves that govern rest. Here, that is all there is.
We promise no grand benefits. Only this: time that asks nothing of you, and solitude that is kept safe, are among the hardest things to find today.
Sources: Park et al. 2010, Berman et al. 2008, Staats & Hartig 2004, and others.
YUUKA is not a finished facility.
It is a place we are raising slowly — lighting fire on wild land, stepping into the water.
A small truck crosses a plank into the wild land.
Clearing stones, cutting grass — the place for fire is being made by hand.
We are looking for people to join this clearing.
At the end of a day of sweat: the wood fire, and the stream.
Send an email with the single word “Pioneer”.
Dates and details will follow by reply.
Most of what is here, we made by hand.
The woodshed, the sink, this bath.
Set a steel drum, draw water from the stream, stack the blocks, lay the boards.
Buying is faster. We build it anyway.
You sink into the bath you built, with the sound of the stream.
That time, at least, is not for sale anywhere.
Hokuto, Yamanashi. Held between the Yatsugatake range and the Southern Alps, it is the largest municipality in the prefecture. Three of Japan's hundred famous waters are here, and two UNESCO Biosphere Reserves overlap within its boundaries.
At first we were only looking for land with a stream. We drew maps, pulled registries, wrote letters. We were turned down, and wrote again. Someone gave us their mountain. And somewhere in all the visiting, before we had fallen for the land, we had fallen for its people.
The fire at YUUKA burns wood off this city's mountain, and is cooled in this city's stream. Nothing is carried in from outside.
It could have been somewhere else. We can no longer imagine it.
At the foot of Mt. Kaikomagatake, we began on a small private plot in Yamanashi.
Fire, water, earth. What is here, we make by hand.
One day, people will come from across the country, and across the world.
Not loudly — quietly. From here.
You will not find it in search. It is not on the map.
The only way to visit is to be invited.
To the first few we invite — the Himori (fire-keepers) — we send word.
After you register, there is a review.
Never disclose the place or the price to outsiders. Keep your respect for the fire, the water, and others.
Those who pass the review and become Himori can reserve, by the hour, from the member page.
This is not a reservation. It is only so that the first invitation reaches you first.
or write directly to info@yu-ka.space.
Getting here is no burden. West on the Chuo Expressway. Fuji at your back, the Southern Alps off to one side, and the Kofu basin opens out.
It improves once you leave the expressway. Fewer signals. Fewer cars coming the other way. Fields on both sides, and the mountain ahead growing, slowly.
Open the window and the temperature changes. You feel the altitude before you read it anywhere.
Two hours from Tokyo. That may sound long. But only the first ninety minutes are dull.
It has already begun before you arrive.
20 minutes by car from Sutama IC on the Chuo Expressway.
2 hours by car from Shinjuku IC on the Metropolitan Expressway.
The nearest station is Hinoharu on the JR Chuo Line.
There are no set times for arrival or departure. There is no key to hand over — you let yourself in.
The exact place and directions are shared with those who are invited.
Another way onto the wild land of YUUKA.
A place to run a Jimny across stream, slope and trees.
Any year. Sierra and Nomad too.
"fumibi" — a search system that extracts and evaluates parcels adjacent to or crossed by streams, from high-resolution terrain data and registry maps. For finding land to build a camp or a cabin. (Japanese page)
See fumibi →
NOBI — the Jimny-only private off-road experience — was featured in the Japanese automotive magazine Best Car, in its long-running interview column.
Print feature — no article link. Available at bookstores and in digital editions in Japan.
The launch of NOBI — the Jimny-only private off-road experience — was featured by the Japanese automotive media Response (Response.jp).
Read the article ↗Central / Western Yamanashi (Hokuto) · JMA Issued 8/29 17:00