A summary of public reports, written by Ski in Sky and checked against each source. It is not an official investigation, and it may change as investigations continue.
What happened
Two people skiing in the backcountry outside the managed area got into difficulty. Police, the Yotei foothills fire service and ski patrol rescued them.
The police post gives 17 January; it was posted on 2026-01-28 (from the post ID), so the year is 2026.
Where
Outside the ski areaOutside the managed area of a ski resort on Niseko Annupuri.
Known only to the area.
Link to the ski area
Near a ski area, not inside it
Police describe it as outside the ski area's managed area. A resort on Niseko Annupuri is near, but the incident is not attributed to it.
People
Died0
Injured—Not reported
Rescued2
Not confirmed
- What kind of difficulty (lost, injury, avalanche or other). The post's hashtags include #雪崩 (avalanche), but its text does not say an avalanche was involved.
- Injuries.
- The rest of the police thread: the post ends with "continued" (続く). Without logging in, the page shows only one reply, from another account; the police follow-up post was not found.
- Whether this is the same event as the backcountry rescue near Niseko Tokyu Grand Hirafu (a resort on Niseko Annupuri) on 17 January that Hokkaido Shimbun mentions in a round-up dated 2026-01-19 (article 1264565); the newspaper's visible text gives no details, so the two are not merged or linked.
- Whether the UHB report of 17 Jan (two snowboarders fell from a cliff in a no-entry area near a ski area at Kabayama, Kutchan, called 110 about 15:20 saying they were unhurt but could not move) describes this rescue. Same day and count; if so, the cause was a fall from a cliff and neither was injured.
- STV (search result only) reports that the Kutchan cliff-fall pair of 17 Jan were found about 150 m below the cliff and rescued unhurt about 5.5 hours after the call. If this is the same event as the police post, injured = 0 and the cause was a fall from a cliff in a no-entry area.
Sources
- Hokkaido Police regional information office (X) ↗ · 2026-01-28
- UHB (Hokkaido Cultural Broadcasting) ↗ · 2026-01-17
- STV (via Yahoo! News) ↗checked in search results
Last checked against the sources on 2026-10-22.