Why do backcountry accidents happen in Hokkaido? Lessons learned

This post answers one question: why do things go wrong in the Hokkaido backcountry?

This post is 西西’s personal experience and notes. It is not a safety guarantee and does not replace an avalanche course or a qualified guide. Backcountry riding outside the managed area is at your own risk. snowwind.org is SnowWind’s sister brand (backcountry).

This post is for you if you:

• plan to ride outside the managed area in Hokkaido, or to look for powder in the trees
• see plenty of people charging powder every day and want to know what lets them do it
• want to know how many backcountry accidents happen in Hokkaido

A storm-day accident

What follows is an account 西西 passed on; this post has not verified it independently.

A snowboarder was riding in an area where entry is completely prohibited, hit a creek, sank into the snow and suffocated. 西西 added one thing: areas like this usually have warning signs posted.

On the day it happened, the biggest snowstorm of that winter was under way. 西西 was driving at the time, and between the gale and the heavy snow it was impossible to see where the edge of the road was.

西西 analysed the accident. When you chase powder in a snowstorm, the biggest danger is coming to a stop:

• Fresh powder is overly dry, and on a storm day the temperature is also extremely low, so a snowboard’s base can ice up, and the board stalls on any slope that is even slightly flatter.
• With no one’s tracks ahead of you, losing a little speed means stopping.

So 西西’s view is that riding powder on a snowboard, more than on skis, demands knowing the terrain and anticipating more, and being ready at any moment to find someone else’s track when you lose speed, so you can get the speed back. For why a snowboard sinks in powder, see How do you ride powder on a snowboard?.

Key point: in 西西’s view, the biggest danger of chasing powder on a storm day is a snowboard losing speed and stopping in the snow.

The clear day, and the people who ride powder every day

A bluebird day after a storm does not mean safety either. 西西 remembers one time the sky cleared after a storm. In the morning 西西 was still marvelling at the weather; then it occurred to 西西 that, given the weather of the previous few days, this was when a fault tends to form in the snowpack, and avalanche risk was high. As 西西 tells it, a helicopter went into the mountains on a rescue at noon that day, and later 西西 saw online that someone had been killed in an avalanche.

For how to read avalanche risk and how far a forecast can be trusted, see Can avalanches in Hokkaido be predicted?.

So why do some people seem to ride powder every single day? 西西’s answer: locals and long-staying foreigners spend the whole winter there, watching the snow and studying the terrain. 西西 says the same goes for 西西’s own powder and backcountry riding: it rests on knowing the terrain very well, living locally and watching the snowfall every day, choosing routes by the snow and the weather, using lifts and distinctive terrain features as markers, and carrying snowshoes and a beacon.

What you see is the result. You don’t see the whole winter of preparation behind it. For gear, see the backcountry gear list.

Key point: the clear day may be exactly the day avalanche risk is high; the people who ride powder every day have spent the whole winter watching the snow.

The numbers, and three mountains

In September 2026, SnowWind’s principal KAKU summarised Hokkaido Police statistics on Threads. Over the five winter mountain seasons that the table labels Reiwa 3 to Reiwa 7 (years in Japan’s era calendar), Hokkaido recorded 231 backcountry (BC) accidents involving 337 people, with 13 dead and 98 injured — about 80% of all winter mountain accidents. KAKU also wrote that a single avalanche on Mount Yōtei on 11 March 2024 killed two people and injured one; that entry appears in the Hokkaido Police’s list of avalanche accidents.

The raw data is the Hokkaido Police’s published report Fuyuyama shīzun ni okeru sangaku sōnan hassei jōkyō (Hokkaidō) (“Mountain accidents in the winter mountain season, Hokkaido”); a winter mountain season runs from November to the following March. The figures in this post come from the edition counted up to Reiwa 7, the one in the screenshot attached to KAKU’s September 2026 post; later versions at this URL may show different numbers. The same document sorts the causes of winter mountain accidents (not only backcountry ones). First is getting lost (michi mayoi): 191 of the 420 people involved over the five winters. Second is “other”, with examples such as hitting a tree or getting stuck, unable to move, in deep snow. The Hokkaido Police explain it this way: people go outside the resort’s managed area without enough equipment, and when bad weather cuts visibility and the terrain changes, they can no longer tell which way leads down.

KAKU named three mountains:

These three mountains only look easy to get to. That has never meant they are safe.

KAKU, Threads, 5 September 2026

• Asahidake: the weather can turn to whiteout in an instant, there are very few markers, and straying off route quickly turns into a mountain accident.
• Kurodake: a ropeway plus a chairlift make people think it is just an ordinary ski resort. KAKU mentions that going outside the managed area requires a separate mountain-entry procedure; check the details locally before you set out.
• Mount Yōtei: a standalone peak with no resort patrol and a big vertical drop; wind and snowpack change quickly from one aspect to the next, and the gullies are terrain traps in themselves.

These are KAKU’s observations. SnowWind does not run lessons on these three mountains; SnowWind lessons always take place inside the resort’s managed area, in terrain the resort permits and has open that day.

Key point: the most common cause of winter mountain accidents is getting lost; easy access does not mean safety.

Sometimes the most valuable decision is not to ride

In the same post, KAKU wrote:

A real guide's most valuable decision is sometimes to cancel, to turn back, not to ride.

KAKU, Threads, 5 September 2026

The same holds for you: if the weather is wrong, don’t go.

Outside corroboration: a separate Hokkaido Police backcountry safety leaflet also lists “the courage to retreat” as an item: when the weather is bad and you can’t see, are you prepared to turn back?

What you can do:

• Before going outside the managed area, take a formal avalanche course. For what a course teaches, see What do avalanche courses teach? (in Chinese).
• Go with a qualified guide. For how to choose one, see How to choose a backcountry guide in Hokkaido (in Chinese).
• Stay out of prohibited areas. For the safety rules inside a resort, see Japan ski resort safety rules.

At the end of that note, 西西 wrote:

Nature creates miracles, and destroys them too.

西西, teaching notes (translated from the Simplified Chinese original)

Key point: not riding is a decision too, and sometimes the most valuable one.

The accident and its analysis, and the observations from the clear day, come from 西西's teaching notes, all written by 西西; the editors translated the Simplified Chinese original into Traditional Chinese, from which this English version is translated. The course of the accident, the helicopter rescue and the death reported online were all passed on by 西西, and this post has not verified them independently. To avoid identifying details and unverified numbers, we left out the companions, nationality, the times of the emergency call and the search, the first-aid details, the snowfall and visibility figures, and the place names of the accident site and the rescue site. The statistics, the Mount Yōtei avalanche and the observations on the three mountains come from principal KAKU's two Threads posts of 5 September 2026; the numbers have been checked against the original data published by the Hokkaido Police. The two causes, getting lost and "other", and the explanation about going outside the managed area come from the Hokkaido Police's winter mountain accident statistics (the original data behind the screenshot attached to KAKU's post). "The courage to retreat" comes from a separate Hokkaido Police backcountry leaflet; it is outside corroboration and has been checked against the original. The accident counts for each of the three mountains in KAKU's posts are not in the attached statistics screenshot, and their source is unconfirmed; elevations, ropeway heights and the details of the entry procedure are also unverified, so this post gives none of them. The posts' criticism of operators, and the prices they mention, are unrelated to this topic and have been left out.