The process to create and submit a Backcountry Plan to the police in Japan is extremely quick and easy. Gone are the days of printing out eye-wateringly complex spreadsheets and submitting them by hand to a local koban police-box. I’ve used Compass to submit a Backcountry Plan in the car on the way to the trailhead on numerous occasions, and I can’t recommend it enough.

The system works like this:

You submit your Backcountry Plan on the web (instructions below), and share the link with your emergency contacts. Here’s the link to the test plan I made below – click on the POI icons, and you can see the route on a map. Very cool! The plan automatically gets forwarded to the appropriate local police database. If you get lost or injured and don’t return on time, your emergency contacts can raise the alarm by calling the police. Upon being notified of your no-show by your emergency contacts, the police check the database for your Backcountry Plan, and start the search-and-rescue process. If your trip goes all to plan, upon returning from the outdoors you simply click on a link to remove your Backcountry Plan from the databases.

NOTE: As I mention below, the police won’t automatically start searching for you if you forget to remove your plan from the databases. All Backcountry Plans submitted to police in Japan (regardless of format) are only referred to by the police if the police are notified by someone that you’re missing.