Japan calls on tourists skiing in Aomori to take additional precautions

AOMORI, Japan – More and more foreign visitors have been getting lost, buried in avalanches and facing other trouble while skiing or snowboarding on mountains in Japan’s Aomori prefecture, prompting calls for increased precautions before hitting the slopes.

Visitors from overseas, whose numbers have bounced back strongly since the end of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, have accounted for at least half of those who had trouble in the snow in recent years.

The Aomori prefectural police and other authorities are urging tourists from Japan and abroad who visit local ski facilities to exercise greater caution when out on the mountains.

Some organisations are also calling on skiers to carry beacons to signal their location, a useful tool for finding people buried under the snow.

As the wind howled on Feb 7, about 30 people, including police officers and mountain guides, participated in a rescue training session near Hakkoda Ropeway’s Sanroku Station in Aomori city. With the aid of a beacon, participants used rescue probes to find a backpack standing in for a person buried under the snow.

At a separate location, participants placed someone playing the role of a rescued skier on a stretcher and skied to the foot of the mountain with the stretcher in tow. The exercise was also used to teach other search methods and how to coordinate a rescue.

“In recent years, many visitors from overseas have ended up getting into difficulty,” said Mr Yukinobu Tsushima, leader of the rescue training squad from Aomori Police Station. “It’s vital that guides, the police and firefighters work together to improve our search techniques.”

According to the prefectural police, there were 10 incidents in which people got into distress on snowy mountains between December 2024 and Feb 25. These 10 incidents involved a total of 18 people, 10 of whom