East Hokkaido · ShiretokoNo.725★★★Open in map →
Shiretoko Five Lakes
Five lakes in the old-growth forest of the Shiretoko Peninsula, reached by a fenced boardwalk anyone can use and a ground loop the season decides. Brown bears live here, and the visiting rules say so plainly.
- FromShiretoko-Shari Station
- ~90 minSharibus, summer timetable only
- Get off atShiretoko Goko (Sharibus Shiretoko line)
- From there
- Shiretoko Five Lakes
Where it is
102 more notes in Hokkaido · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Shiretoko Goko Field Housethe entrance building, where lectures and guided tours are booked
- The elevated boardwalkan 800-metre fenced walkway over the forest, free and step-free
- Lake Ichikothe first lake, and the only one the boardwalk reaches
- The final lookoutthe end platform, with the Shiretoko range standing behind the water
- The ground paththe forest loop past the remaining lakes, walked only under the season's rule
How to actually get there
- Shiretoko-Shari Station → Shiretoko Goko (Sharibus Shiretoko line, about 90 minutes, summer timetable only).
- Field House → check the day's rule for the ground path and book a slot if you want one.
- Walk the elevated boardwalk out to Lake Ichiko and the final lookout, then back.
- If your slot allows it, take the ground loop past the remaining lakes.
- Sharibus Shiretoko line from Shiretoko-Shari Station
- Shiretoko-Shari is the Senmo Main Line station for the peninsula. The Sharibus Shiretoko line runs from the station through Utoro Onsen and on to Shiretoko Goko, and Hokkaido Tourism Organization gives about ninety minutes for the whole ride. The through service to the lakes exists on the summer timetable only, currently 28 April to 31 October.
- Return from Shiretoko Goko
- The same line runs back through Utoro to the station, but it is a thin timetable and the last bus off the lakes leaves a long way before dark. Read the return board at the field house before you start walking, not after you finish.
About the place
Two different walks leave the same car park, and choosing between them is the whole decision here. An elevated boardwalk runs out to the shore of the first lake, hung with an electrified wire and open to anyone, free of charge, wheelchairs included. The ground path is the other one: a loop of about three kilometres across the forest floor past all five lakes, with nothing between you and the animals that live in it. Which of the two you may take, and on what terms, is set by the calendar rather than by you.
How to enjoy it
Be at the field house when it opens. Lectures and guided tours are both capped by the day, and the early slots are the ones that go. From 10 May to 31 July the ground path may only be walked with a registered guide; from the opening of the season to 9 May, and again from 1 August, the lecture is enough on its own. If neither fits your day, the boardwalk is there the whole season and costs nothing.
Background & history
The lakes lie in wet hollows on the seaward flank of the Shiretoko range, on a peninsula that was never cleared or farmed, which is why the forest around them is still old growth and why the peninsula was later inscribed as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site. Protection here arrived as rules rather than fences. As visitor numbers climbed, the ground path was placed under a use-adjustment scheme that splits the season into a stretch protecting the vegetation and a stretch that assumes bears are moving through. The boardwalk was built so the view stayed open to everyone regardless.
Before you go
- Cash
- The boardwalk costs nothing for the whole open season. The ground path does: the lecture in the vegetation-protection periods and the guided tour in the bear-activity period are both charged, and the tour is booked through the field house, ahead of the day if you can. There is no shop and no toilet out on the ground path, so use the field house before you go.
- Before you go
- The lakes shut for winter. The field house season currently runs 20 April to 8 November and the road and the bus follow it; outside that window there is no way in on foot. Within the season the ground path can be closed at short notice when a bear is working the area, and the boardwalk stays open when that happens.
- Another way
- By car, the lakes are about 14 kilometres past Utoro Onsen — around twenty minutes on the official guide — and the field house has parking for a hundred vehicles. Arriving by air, Memanbetsu Airport is roughly 90 kilometres from Utoro, with a seasonal bus over that stretch.
- After you get off
- The bus sets down in the lakes' car park, a minute from the field house door. Settle your ground-path slot inside before you walk anywhere; the boardwalk entrance is on the far side of the building, and it is the one you can always use.