About Kamabuchi Waterfall (kamabuchi-no-taki [釜淵の滝])
The Kamabuchi Waterfall (kamabuchi-no-taki [釜淵の滝]; “Pot Falls”?) was a quaint waterfall situated within the Hanamaki Onsen area, which is a popular resort complex in the Tohoku Region.
It has a short, stocky appearance as the Daigawa River tumbles over a rounded lava surface with about 8.5m in height and 30m in width (which can segment or consolidate depending on its flow).
The name of the waterfall translates into something like a pot or cauldron because it’s said to resemble a pot turned upside down (you might see this in the picture above).
In my mind, the waterfall was merely a backdrop to the seemingly popular Hanamaki Onsen hot springs area.
Heck, given the short walk for the falls, it seemed like a very doable thing to combine it with a soak in an onsen.
In fact, the Daigawa River seemed to have some degree of mixing with geothermally-heated waters though you can’t swim at this waterfall.
In any case, as far as accessing the waterfall was concerned, we started from the car park of the furthest of the Hanamaki Onsen facilities (see directions below).
We then walked a small service road towards a spur trail that descended to a bridge fronting a man-made or man-modified waterfall, which was NOT the Kamabuchi Falls.
Beyond the bridge, we then went through a rather quiet forested trail with at least three bear bells to strike to try to prevent bear encounters here.
After about 300m of walking, we eventually got down to the viewing deck fronting the Kamabuchi Falls, where there was also a shelter and some shrine-like infrastructure.
Beyond this lookout, the trail kept going further downstream though we didn’t do it on our visit.
I understand that it was possible to visit other small waterfalls in the area, but it was getting late and we were content with just the Kamabuchi Falls before continuing on to Morioka, where we were staying at the time.
Overall, we only spent a little over 30 minutes away from the car, which attests to how easy of a visit this was.
That said, we parked in one of the closest lots to the Kamabuchi Falls, but had we started further down in the complex at the larger public lot, then the round-trip distance would be about 1.1km instead of 600m.
Authorities
The Kamabuchi Waterfall resides in Hanamaki Onsen, which was south of Morioka in the Iwate Prefecture, Japan. It may be administered by the local authorities at Hanamaki Onsen. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting this website.
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