I’d not stayed at Hiyamizu Hut before, and it was high on my list of places to visit in the winter. Rick and Hiro, friends from Sapporo were keen to join, and then I got a message from Chris (from Sweden), saying that him and his friends Ed (UK), Isabella (Sweden), and Eric (Sweden) had spent most of the season in Niseko and were hoping to visit Okuteine Hut in the weekend (as per my route guide). He was asking for some more deatils about the hut, but I mentioned that I’d be going to Mt. Sapporo. So they all decided to join, and we had a merry group of seven.

We started off at 9am from the trailhead (location), hoping to make the most of a forecast weather window that would hopefully give us some good visibility at the summit of Mt. Sapporo (Mt. Sapporo weather here). The route follows the Hiyamizu-sawa River (冷水沢川) through some scraggly forest at the beginning, quickly becoming more and more picturesque.

Chris and Ed had not originally planned to do any overnighters while in Japan on their skiing holiday, so had picked up some cheap and large foam flooring tiles to act as sleeping pads. The would later tell me that they were “not ideal”.