Hokkaido in winter: Snow Festival, drift ice and cranes

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Sapporo, the festival after dark

   New Chitose Airport to Sapporo

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Welcome dinner
   • Nuit : Sapporo
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into New Chitose Airport (CTS), where a driver meets you for the hour into Sapporo. Plan to land by about 3 pm. Hokkaido's capital was laid out on a grid in the 1870s, so the streets are easy to read even under snow, and your hotel is central, a short walk from Odori Park. In the late afternoon there is time to see the red-brick Sapporo Beer Museum, set in an 1890 brewery building, or simply to rest. At dusk your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on cold-weather kit, ice cleats and how snow can reorder the week. Then we walk to dinner together: jingisukan, lamb grilled at the table on a domed iron pan, the city's own dish. On festival departures we finish by strolling Odori Park, where the big snow sculptures are lit until 10 pm, and Susukino's ice carvings glow at the far end of the avenue.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at New Chitose Airport (CTS)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome jingisukan dinner
   • Evening walk through the lit Snow Festival sites on Odori Park and in Susukino (festival departures)

   Activités en option

   • Sapporo Beer Museum (entry free, tasting sets paid)

   Temps libre : Free until the evening briefing

   Activité : Odori Park and Susukino are about 1.5 km apart on packed snow; wear the ice cleats we give you.

   

2. Jour 2 : Snow sculptures early, Otaru by lamplight

   Sapporo to Otaru by train and back

   • En train
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Sapporo
   Détail du jour 2

   We are on Odori Park by about 8:30, before the day crowds, to see the large snow sculptures in flat morning light, when the detail shows best, then walk to the smaller citizens' sculptures and the ice slides. Lunch is soup curry, Sapporo's winter comfort food, near the station. In the early afternoon we take the JR train along the coast to Otaru, about 40 minutes with the sea on one side. Your guide walks you down Sakaimachi Street, past glassworks and old merchant houses, to the Otaru Music Box Museum and the 1920s warehouses on the canal. At dusk the canal's gas lamps come on, and on Snow Light Path dates the canal and old railway line are lined with candles in snow lanterns. Take the train back with the group, or stay for sushi in Otaru and come back on your own; the evening is free. On non-festival departures the morning is the Nijo Market and Hokkaido Jingu instead.

   Compris

   • Snow Festival on Odori Park with your guide in the early morning (festival departures)
   • Soup curry lunch in Sapporo
   • Return JR train from Sapporo to Otaru
   • Otaru: Sakaimachi Street, the Music Box Museum and the canal at dusk

   Activités en option

   • Mt Moiwa ropeway for the night view over Sapporo

   Option plus facile : Stay in Sapporo for the afternoon and meet the group again at the hotel; the guide gives you a short list of warm places to go.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Otaru or Sapporo

   Activité : About 4 to 5 km on foot through the day on snowy pavements, in short stretches.

3. Jour 3 : Penguins in the snow and the Blue Pond lit

   Sapporo to Asahikawa, then the Blue Pond near Biei and back

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Asahikawa
   Détail du jour 3

   We leave Sapporo after breakfast and drive about two hours north on the expressway to Asahikawa, Hokkaido's second city, in a basin ringed by the Daisetsuzan mountains, and one of the coldest places in Japan. After a sit-down lunch we spend the afternoon at Asahiyama Zoo, known for its enclosures that let you watch animals from below and alongside: polar bears through glass, seals rising through a tube. The highlight in winter is the penguin walk, when king penguins waddle in a line along a snowy path a metre from the crowd; we time our visit for the afternoon walk. As the light goes, about 4:45 pm, we drive an hour south to the Shirogane Blue Pond, which is lit after dark in winter, the drowned larches standing out of snow and ice. Back in Asahikawa we sit down to Asahikawa ramen, a soy-based broth made for nights like this. This day reaches the four-hour driving cap, broken by lunch and the zoo.

   Compris

   • Drive from Sapporo to Asahikawa with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch in Asahikawa
   • Asahiyama Zoo, including the penguin walk (when snow conditions allow)
   • The Shirogane Blue Pond, lit after dark
   • Asahikawa ramen dinner

   Activité : The zoo is on a hillside with snowy slopes between enclosures; about 2 km on foot. The penguin walk depends on snow cover and the zoo's daily schedule.

   

4. Jour 4 : Frozen falls and over the pass to the Okhotsk

   Asahikawa to Sounkyo, then over Sekihoku Pass to Abashiri

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Abashiri
   Détail du jour 4

   We head east into the Daisetsuzan mountains to Sounkyo, a gorge of basalt cliffs where the Ginga and Ryusei waterfalls freeze into columns of blue ice. In winter the village builds the Ice Fall Festival from sprayed river water: ice tunnels and towers you can walk through. We are there by day, so you see the ice in daylight; the coloured lights only come on in the evening. Lunch is in Sounkyo or, if the weather is kind, further on in Kitami. The road then climbs over Sekihoku Pass and drops through farmland to the Sea of Okhotsk at Abashiri, about four hours of driving in all. Just before town the road runs beside Lake Abashiri, frozen solid, where we stop to watch the smelt fishers sitting in small tents on the ice. Sekihoku Pass closes in heavy snow; if it does, your guide takes the northern road via Monbetsu and adds the Garinko II icebreaker there, and the Abashiri plan moves a day. The evening is free in Abashiri: the crab and scallops here are the reason many people come.

   Compris

   • Sounkyo gorge and the frozen Ginga and Ryusei waterfalls
   • Sounkyo Ice Fall Festival by daylight (lit only in the evenings; dates confirmed each year)
   • Sit-down lunch on the way
   • Stop at frozen Lake Abashiri to see the smelt fishers on the ice

   Temps libre : Evening free in Abashiri

   Activité : Short walks only, on icy paths at the falls; ice cleats needed.

   

5. Jour 5 : Icebreaker morning, Shiretoko on the ice

   Abashiri by icebreaker, then Utoro on the Shiretoko Peninsula and back

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Abashiri
   Détail du jour 5

   We leave the hotel at 8:30 for the Aurora icebreaker's first sailing of the day from Abashiri, about an hour. When the drift ice is in, the bow rides up onto the floes and splits them, and you can stand on deck as plates of ice turn over beside the hull; seals and Steller's sea eagles are sometimes seen resting on the floes. From there we drive about an hour and a quarter along the coast to Utoro, gateway to the Shiretoko Peninsula, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005, stopping at Oshinkoshin Falls, partly frozen in winter. After a seafood lunch in Utoro you pull on a dry suit and walk out onto the drift ice with a licensed local guide, about an hour on the floes, with a chance to float in a gap between them. The mountains of Shiretoko rise white behind you. We are back in Abashiri by early evening, and the night is free. If the ice is not in at Utoro, as is usual on late-January dates, the walk becomes a guided snowshoe walk in the Shiretoko forest.

   Compris

   • Aurora icebreaker cruise from Abashiri (about 1 hour)
   • Oshinkoshin Falls
   • Seafood lunch in Utoro
   • Drift-ice walk off Utoro in a dry suit with a licensed local guide (snowshoe walk in the Shiretoko forest if there is no ice)

   Option plus facile : Skip the drift-ice walk and watch from the shore at Utoro, or spend the time at the Shiretoko Nature Center with its film on the peninsula.

   Option plus active : A longer guided snowshoe walk in the Shiretoko forest after the drift-ice walk, looking for deer and fox tracks.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Abashiri

   Activité : The drift-ice walk has health and minimum-age limits set by the local operators; we check them with you when you book. The icebreaker deck is cold and windy; dress for -15 C.

6. Jour 6 : Prison museum, swans and volcano lakes to Akan

   Abashiri to Lake Kussharo, Io-zan and Lake Mashu, then Lake Akan

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Akanko Onsen
   Détail du jour 6

   We are at the Abashiri Prison Museum at 9 am opening, before any coaches. The Meiji-era wooden prison buildings, moved here from the working prison, include a radial cell block whose five wings fan out from a central watch post; convicts held here built many of Hokkaido's first roads. Then south across farmland to Lake Kussharo, Japan's largest caldera lake, which freezes over except at Sunayu, where hot springs warm the shore and whooper swans gather on the open water. Lunch is in Kawayu Onsen. Io-zan, a sulphur mountain a few minutes away, steams and hisses beside the car park, its vents ringed with yellow crystals. From the first observatory at Lake Mashu, a very clear crater lake when the fog lifts, you look down into a ring of snowy crater walls. The day is about 145 km and 3 hours of winter driving, under the 4-hour cap, in five short legs between stops. We reach our onsen hotel on Lake Akan late afternoon, with time for the baths before dinner and an Ainu performance at the Ikor theatre.

   Compris

   • Abashiri Prison Museum
   • Whooper swans at Sunayu on Lake Kussharo
   • Sit-down lunch in Kawayu Onsen
   • Io-zan sulphur mountain
   • Lake Mashu first observatory
   • Onsen dinner at the hotel
   • Ainu performance at the Ikor theatre in Akan Kotan

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free for the onsen

   Activité : Short walks of a few hundred metres at each stop. The road to Lake Mashu can close in snow; if it does, we see Mashu from Kawayu instead.

   

7. Jour 7 : Red-crowned cranes and the frozen lake

   Lake Akan to Tsurui and the Akan crane centre, then back to Lake Akan

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Akanko Onsen
   Détail du jour 7

   The red-crowned crane, the tancho, was almost gone from Japan a century ago; winter feeding by local farmers helped bring it back, and today the cranes gather each winter around Tsurui and Akan. We leave at 7:30 after an early breakfast, the one early start of the trip, and drive about an hour through the snow to the Tsurui Ito Tancho Sanctuary for the morning feed, when dozens of cranes fly in over the snowfields, call to each other and, if you are lucky, dance: bowing, leaping and throwing their heads back. Lunch is in Tsurui. Then we move to the Akan International Crane Center, with a small museum on the birds, and the Tancho Observation Center feeding ground beside it. Back at Lake Akan by mid-afternoon, the rest of the day is free: walk out on the frozen lake with your guide, try the lake's winter activities, or soak in the outdoor bath as the light goes. Dinner is at the hotel. On set winter evenings there are small fireworks over the frozen lake.

   Compris

   • Tsurui Ito Tancho Sanctuary, morning crane feeding
   • Sit-down lunch in Tsurui
   • The Akan International Crane Center and the Tancho Observation Center feeding ground
   • Walk on frozen Lake Akan with your guide
   • Onsen dinner at the hotel

   Activités en option

   • Lake Akan winter activities on the ice: snowmobile, ice fishing, skating (paid locally)

   Option plus facile : Stay at the hotel after the morning feed at Tsurui and rejoin the group at dinner.

   Option plus active : Before breakfast, drive with the guide to the Otowa Bridge at Tsurui to see the cranes standing in the steaming Setsuri River at sunrise (about a 5:30 am start, temperatures can be -20 C).

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free at Lake Akan

   Activité : Crane viewing is mostly standing still in the cold for 30 to 60 minutes at a time; dress more warmly than you think.

8. Jour 8 : Fly to Tokyo

   Lake Akan to Kushiro Airport, then a flight to Tokyo Haneda

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner
   Détail du jour 8

   A last morning soak, breakfast, and a slow start. Mid-morning we drive about an hour south through the snow to Kushiro Airport (KUH), past the edge of the Kushiro Marsh, Japan's largest wetland and the cranes' summer home. Your guide checks the group in for the domestic flight to Tokyo Haneda (HND), about an hour and a half, which we book for you and include in the price. Most days the group lands at Haneda early or mid-afternoon; the exact flight is confirmed with your final itinerary. The trip ends on arrival at Haneda. From there it is a short train ride into central Tokyo if you are staying on, or a connection home. If a storm grounds the flight, which happens a few days each winter, we rebook the first available seats and arrange a hotel near the airport. Book any onward international flight from Haneda for after about 6 pm.

   Compris

   • Transfer from Lake Akan to Kushiro Airport (KUH)
   • Flight from Kushiro to Tokyo Haneda (HND), economy, with checked bag

   Temps libre : Morning free for the onsen

   Activité : Book onward flights from Haneda for after about 6 pm, or plan a night in Tokyo.

Faune et météo : Days run from about -10 C to 0 C, colder inland at Asahikawa and Akan, with short daylight (sunset around 4:45 pm in early February). Drift ice is most reliable off Abashiri and Utoro from mid-February to early March; on late-January dates it has often not arrived. Red-crowned cranes gather at the feeding grounds from November to March; whooper swans winter at Lake Kussharo; Steller's sea eagles and seals are sometimes seen from the icebreaker.

• Sapporo2 nuits
• Asahikawa1 nuit
• Abashiri2 nuits
• Akanko Onsen2 nuits