Kogome no Yu湯河原温泉 こごめの湯

Kogome no Yu (こごめの湯) is the town-operated day-use onsen in Yugawara - the one locals send you to when you just want a clean soak without a ryokan commitment. It sits uphill from Yugawara Station in the onsen district, tucked against 万葉公園 (Manyo Park), and has been operating for decades in the municipally-built format: a concrete-and-tatami facility, gendered bathing wings, a paid massage corner, a private-bath option, and a free rest room upstairs with a view over the onsen town.

The water is 湯河原温泉混合泉（権現山サーランス） - a sodium-calcium chloride-sulfate spring, pH 8.4, source temperature in the 60-90°C range. It's the standard Yugawara-area baseline: weakly alkaline, colorless and transparent, faintly salty, with the slippery skin-feel (ぬるすべ / つるすべ) that reviewers across fifteen-plus years consistently note. The operator's language is 源泉かけ流し - source-fed flow-through - though at least one reviewer has reported a distinct chlorine smell, which is why we flag the water-handling question in the data notes rather than taking the marketing claim at face value.

The bath inventory: gendered 内湯 (indoor large bath) and 露天風呂 (outdoor bath, a roughly ten-person rock bath under a gazebo roof, sitting around 41°C), a 貸切風呂 for private use, and a 岩盤浴 (heated stone-slab room). No sauna, no 水風呂 - sauna-oriented visitors should go elsewhere. The men's and women's wings carry different names (小梅の湯 and 万葉の湯), which is typical of facilities that rotate the baths periodically; check which side is open to you the day you arrive.

The pricing is where Kogome no Yu earns its reputation as the sensible municipal option - and where the fine print matters. Daytime admission (9:00-19:00) is ¥1,100 for adults, ¥600 for elementary/junior-high students, free under school age. The evening slot (19:00-21:00) drops adult admission to ¥600 and children to ¥400 - a genuine half-price window, and the reason Kogome no Yu is a strong 'after dinner, before bed' add-on to a Yugawara day that already has a meal plan. The catch: towels are not included (¥200 hand towel, ¥550 bath towel), lockers are a non-refundable ¥100, and parking is ¥100 per 60 minutes adjacent (there's free parking 150 m uphill for planners). Budget roughly ¥1,500 for a daytime visit with rentals, or ¥900 for an evening visit if you bring your own towel.

Hours are 9:00 to 21:00 with last entry at 20:30. Closed on Mondays - bumped to Tuesday if Monday is a national holiday - plus occasional maintenance closures that aren't posted to a public schedule, so a phone confirmation (0465-63-6944) is worth it for a dated trip. Access is a ~10-minute taxi ride from Yugawara Station, or an uphill walk through the onsen district if you want the full approach. The 2F free tatami rest room, which several reviewers single out as the best feature of a visit, looks out over the town and is genuinely worth factoring in - plan the bath as a two-hour stop, not a 45-minute one.

Where Kogome no Yu sits in the Yugawara onsen mix: it is not a destination in itself. It is the dependable, low-friction, town-operated option you use when you want a real bath without booking a ryokan, when you've just come off a hike or a long lunch, or when you want to pair the soak with an 85-yen per minute massage and a view from the rest room. The water is good-but-not-rare; the facility is dated-but-characterful; the pricing is mid-tier by the hour but genuinely cheap in the evening slot. That combination is what makes it the canonical first onsen to try in town.

住所: 神奈川県足柄下郡湯河原町宮上562-6

電話番号: 0465-63-6944

営業時間: 9:00-21:00 (last entry 20:30)

タオル: Paid rental (¥200 hand, ¥550 bath). No free towels. Bring-your-own is fine and saves ¥200.

浴槽の種類: 内湯, 露天風呂, 貸切風呂, 岩盤浴

源泉: 湯河原温泉混合泉（権現山サーランス）

泉質: ナトリウム・カルシウム-塩化物・硫酸塩泉 (弱アルカリ性低張性高温泉)

源泉温度: 65°C

pH: 8.4

温泉の取り扱い: 源泉かけ流し

「無色透明の湯は、つるすべ感があり、とても良く温まる優しい感触の温泉です」

Colorless, transparent, slippery-silky, and warms you through - a gentle hot spring.

「少し昔の日帰り温泉、という感じでしょうか。何となく風情がある感じです」

Feels like a day-use bath from an earlier era - dated, but there's a certain character to it.

「弱食塩泉のやさしい泉質は身体を芯から温め、心と万病にじんわりと効いてきます」

A mild saline spring that warms you from the core and works, slowly, on body and mind.

「町営ならではの昔ながらの日帰り温泉施設」

A municipal day-use bath of the old-school kind.

「外の露天風呂は、東屋風の屋根が付いた、10人サイズの岩風呂で、湯温は41℃位」

The outdoor bath is a ten-person rock bath under a gazebo-style roof, the water around 41°C.

「2階には無料の畳敷き休憩室があり、ここからの眺めが素晴らしい」

Upstairs, a free tatami rest room - the view from here is superb.

「塩素の匂いが凄く長湯が出来なかった事が残念です」

The chlorine smell was strong, and I couldn't soak as long as I wanted - disappointing.

複数のプラットフォームで収集した情報に矛盾があった箇所です。

• Water handling: The operator markets 源泉かけ流し (source-fed flow-through) and Niftyonsen's structured profile confirms it with 加水/加温/循環/塩素消毒 unpopulated. A 2010 Nifty user review, however, reports a distinct chlorine smell strong enough to shorten the soak. The most likely reality is a mixed water-handling model: source water to the main baths, with recirculation and chlorination applied to ancillary components per Japanese public-bath hygiene law. We surface both signals rather than pick a verdict.
• Hours: Tabelog's English listing shows 11:30-16:00, which is wrong. The operator's own site, the Yugawara tourism page, and Niftyonsen all confirm 9:00-21:00 with last entry at 20:30. We use 9:00-21:00. If Google shows anything different on the day you travel, trust the operator.
• Tattoo policy: No source we consulted - operator, town tourism, Nifty, or the Yugawara entry on tattoofriendlyonsen.com - names Kogome no Yu as tattoo-permitted or as explicitly prohibiting tattoos. Per our defensive default (onsen rubric §7.3) we treat this as 'unknown - call to confirm' rather than defaulting to either answer. Phone 0465-63-6944.
• Bath-name rotation: The men's and women's bathing wings carry different names (小梅の湯 and 万葉の湯). This pattern typically indicates a periodic swap where the rooms rotate between the two genders, so the specific bath you experience may depend on the day. Neither the operator nor Nifty publishes the swap schedule.
• Cleaning / 湯抜き days: The operator mentions 'occasional maintenance closures' but does not publish a public 湯抜き schedule. For a dated trip - especially one planning Kogome no Yu as the main bath of the day - call 0465-63-6944 in advance to confirm the facility is open.
• Tabelog data: Tabelog does carry a listing for this facility (3.07 / 12 reviews). The review volume is below our signal floor and the hours field is stale; we did not use Tabelog as a scoring input, only as a sanity check that was then overridden by authoritative sources.

• Official operator site (kogomenoyu.com)
• Yugawara Onsen Official tourism page
• Niftyonsen structured profile
• Niftyonsen user reviews
• Kanagawa prefecture tourism listing