A Japanese macaque sits at the edge of one of the hot spring pools at Jigokudani Yaen-koen, the Snow Monkey Park above Yamanouchi in Nagano, watching something beyond the frame with the same stillness these monkeys hold between soaks. We had left our ryokan before sunrise, walked the long approach on foot, then hiked the last stretch into the park to reach the enclosure right as the gates opened, ahead of the day's first tour groups. For a short while the valley belonged to a handful of monkeys and no one else. This troop's presence at Jigokudani traces back to 1964, when a local resident built the park to keep the macaques out of nearby farmland rather than see them driven off it. Japanese macaques are not endangered today, and mornings like this one, quiet and unhurried, are part of why that arrangement still works.
