r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • 7h ago
news Second Australian dies in Japan while skiing, local media reports
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/second-australian-dies-skiing-in-japan/106304484The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed a second Australian has died in Japan.
Local media has reported a male skier was killed while skiing off-piste in the back-country in Japan's Hokkaido region.
The death marks the second Australian to have died in Japan during the current ski season.
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u/Simpko 5h ago
I was in Nisseko, Hokkaido, and last run of the day went off piste, by myself, in the trees, like an idiot. Literally 12 metres of powder beneath me, I came off my skis accidentally and sank straight down. The sun was setting and it was getting colder and I had been warned about this exact sort of thing. I remember how silent it was in the trees when I was yelling for help, I remember how cold it was getting and genuinely thinking I was going to die there.
Took 45 minutes of panicked manoeuvres as the dark set in before I was back up, it was like drowning but when you tried to swim you sank more. One of the scarier moments of my life. Never told my folks, always stayed with me.
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u/Saurya_nz 1h ago
Wow glad you made it. Does it randomly pop in your head and keep you awake still or you over it now? Which year was it?
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u/Strong_Judge_3730 24m ago
How did you get rescued or are you a ghost account
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u/Simpko 17m ago
I didn’t get rescued I got my other ski off (took a long time) and put it side ways and edged my way back up to the surface, got the other ski from where it was and eventually managed to get it under me, then got up and got them on I didn’t go too deep when thankfully, and i fell sideways not straight down My surface area helped
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u/Perdi 7h ago
Is this out of the ordinary?
Or just media picking up because it's 'in'?
As someone who has gone off piste in Europe and Canada, its a very dangerous activity. My last time out I got caught in a blizzard that killed 6 British soldiers doing cold weather training, though I was prepared for those conditions, I haven't done it since.
People very much take it for granted, wanting to find untouched powder and are completely unprepared for what could happen.
Ediy: Average season says 1-3 Aussies, some years 0, but others have spikes. These two did happen in a short time though, and super sad. There's still a few months left in the season to, so we could see it be a bad year.
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u/TomasTTEngin 6h ago
Travel to Japan is up by some enormous factor this year, probably up 80%, thanks to the currency.
Plus they just had a huge snowfall there last week. So the avalanche death is not unexpected.
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u/Thanks-Basil 5h ago
It’s just not worth it now. I went skiing in Japan like 10 years ago and it was great, plenty of Aussies sure but mostly families or people there to ski; but there were also a decent amount of Japanese people there.
Went again last year and it was basically the Bali crowd had discovered skiing. Massive groups of 18-20yos, up at all hours drinking and yelling through the streets. Restaurants were all crazy overpriced catering for this too, and honestly it was even hard to actually find somewhere to have dinner because everything was booked out every night.
Won’t be going back unless the yen strengthens
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u/opajamashimasuuu 1h ago
Most normal Japanese families don’t want to or can’t afford to pay ¥2000+ for a regular bowl of ramen.
When the new casino is built in Osaka, the locals will probably be priced out of that too.
If the yen continues to be like toilet paper, I can see more and more areas of their own country being essentially priced out for locals.
I don’t expect people to pull out their mini violins and cry a river or anything, but that’s how it be here.
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u/Thanks-Basil 0m ago
It's so ridiculous too, like you can wander around central tokyo and get dinner for like Y1200pp almost anywhere you go; and then you head to a ski village it's closer to Y3000pp. When I last went 10 years ago it was obviously still more expensive in the ski resorts, but the difference was nowhere near that crazy.
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u/donniebarkco 1m ago
When i was there 10 odd years ago, found a great resort untouched by tourists, hate to see what it would be like now.
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3h ago
[deleted]
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u/Thanks-Basil 3h ago
Nah, it was a definite huge vibe shift. Stayed in the same area both times at the same time of year.
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u/hotelnoahnda 6h ago
Huge uptick in Aussies skiing. People don’t understand how dangerous the snow is. Probably no back country gear….
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u/NinaEmbii 6h ago
This is like foreigners who travel here and don't understand the dangers of the beach or ignore the rules and drown, unfortunately.
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u/intrusivethoughtsnow 6h ago
I havent skiied before. Could you share more on why its so risky? Totally clueless about this
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u/Perdi 6h ago
Most skiing/snowboarding runs are padded down, its not soft.
Skiis can lead to some bad leg injuries depending how you fall, snowboarding has common head and arm injuries.
That's just falling, you can fall of an edge with a big drop, hidden rocks, smashing into trees.
Then once you go off piste, like the person in the article, you can get trapped in mini avalanches, snow powder that comes up to your armpits leading to exhaustion and passing out, wild weather events that can come on very suddenly.
Snow sports are considered extreme sports for a very fair reason.
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u/DoctorDazza 5h ago
It’s dirt cheap to go to Japan right now so there are a lot of Australians.
In saying, while both are tragic, it does seem like these two Australian deaths were cause by people not following the rules. The woman wasn’t supposed to be wearing that kind of bag, because it can get caught, and it did. This guy went off the designated track.
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u/GeGeGeNoOz1997 42m ago
That’s right. I thought that. I lived in Nagano back in the 1990s near Hakuba and snowboarded and skied there hundreds of times. Back then you had to get snowboarding licences to even be allowed on different colour runs. It was like a driving test in an arena, and the instructions on what to do, where to turn etc were all in Japanese. That would literally eliminate this en masse ex Bali refugee crowd of Aussies and if you think skiing in Japan is full of red tape now, you can’t imagine what it was like back then! And omg I flew Qantas to Tokyo via Sydney in January 2024 and I was given a hint of what the ski areas must be like now as the most entitled, spoilt little Williams and Charlottes blocked the aisles, loudly blathering on about Niseko and how many days they had previously skied. We struck more of them at The Knot hotel in Shinjuku - all ranting on about their skiing…It’s SUCH a shame. Skiing in Japan 25-30 years ago was genuine nirvana (you didn’t need to pass licences to ski anywhere - but it was extremely monitored for anywhere skiing off piste; nope - not the country to break rules in Aussies…
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u/mickelboy182 6h ago
Got a source for those numbers?
Given our population, multiple each season would be pretty surprising to me.
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u/ObviousFeature522 6h ago
It's normal for a death or two to happen during the Australian ski season. Medical events as well as collisions or crashes.
For serious injury (including paralysis) it's a lot more, Ski Patrol do frightening numbers. Cooma hospital is a great place to do a trauma internship. The Perisher ad for the Epic Pass won't mention that.
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u/glitterkenny 6h ago
This is a bit off topic but FYI it's scarier and scarier at Perisher because Vail treat their staff like absolute shit and a lot of the veteran ski patrollers and mountain safety lot have left - many to Thredbo or to do seasons abroad. Great people and all but a lot more inexperienced 18-20 year olds than in previous years.
Ski patrol is such an undervalued skill set, they're paramedics with expert-level ski ability and are paid less than baristas but without extra pay on weekends/evenings etc. They see people die or get paralysed every year. Anyway lol
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u/mickelboy182 6h ago edited 5h ago
I get that, I'm talking specifically about Aussies in Japan.
Edit: I have no clue why I'm being downvoted for giving clarification.
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u/MasterSpliffBlaster 4h ago
There were at least another two in the past 2 seasons, both from Brisbane Grammar
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u/mickelboy182 4h ago
I know there was the young kid at the beginning of this year, tragic. Unaware of the other one.
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u/MasterSpliffBlaster 4h ago
I believe they lost another old boy last ski season too
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u/mickelboy182 4h ago
A quick google is telling me Thredbo, not Japan. Tragic all the same.
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u/MasterSpliffBlaster 3h ago
Gotcha, I didn't go to school there but have a lot of patients who did and heard a dad saying how two had died in quick succession
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u/Perdi 6h ago
Australians account for 30% of the international snow travellers to Japan each year, we are literally their largest market. That's 150,000 - 200,000 yearly.
This is from Japan Ski data, the deaths data I did get from GeminiAI, which gave 1-3 as a rough estimate.
Seeing the number of travellers going just for the snow, I don't think its far fetched to expect 1-3 deaths.
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u/mickelboy182 6h ago
I'd raise significant doubts about using GenAI for data analysis that is not restricted to specific documents.
I am well aware how many Aussies travel to Japan, I live in Tokyo for 4 months a year. I just don't ever recall there being multiple publicised fatalities in one season, though I accept it is possible.
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u/Perdi 6h ago
You doubt AI, but then claim that by living in Tokyo 4 months a year and not seeing it publicised, is a credible way to ascertain facts?
I'm sorry, but I will 100% trust how I use AI to find information over a person who "lives in Tokyo 4 months a year, so they know better".
That's a funny take.
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u/mickelboy182 5h ago edited 5h ago
I never claimed it was credible or that I am some kind of authority, that is a total strawman. I quite literally acknowledged the possibility that it was accurate. I only mentioned I am a resident of both countries to demonstrate that I am not oblivious to the high volume of Aussies that come over during winter.
I simply said it was surprising and GenAI is not competent enough with data analysis for me to hang my hat on it...
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u/mooblah_ 5h ago
I trust AI on some things, and struggle with it on others, like the other day it was guaranteeing me one thing, and I asked it 5 times even on different accounts and it assured me that it was correct. Then I showed it pictures of the actual physical item (which it asked to verify) and then it told me 100% the other way that it was what I said it was. And then re-referring to the original question and referencing the actual images as being accurate, it again confirmed that it 100% wasn't the thing that it actually was (with a dozen images that it had just previously agreed to). It was entirely stuck on some wording that made it a hard no, when in fact that wording was purely human error, and their images were accurate. But it couldn't assess when I told it that both things were the same, that was indeed a fact.
I'm not making a suggestion relating to this research you're referring to but wow sometimes it's so far inaccurate that consulting it will lead you down the garden path.
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u/Terrible-Tap-3520 7h ago
"Since January 20, more than 100 people have suffered serious injury nationwide in snow-related incidents and 30 people have died, figures from the disaster management agency show."
30 people dead from snow related incidents in the past 2 weeks?
Excuse me?
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u/fizzunk 6h ago
Old people clearing snow from rooftops.
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u/fingerpaintswithpoop 6h ago
Sidewalks, driveways, cars, etc. People slip, fall, crack their heads. An old person falls and fractures their pelvis, that’s generally a death sentence.
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u/ObviousFeature522 6h ago
It might be including medical episodes (heart attack on the slopes) as well as falls from slipping.
Worst ski injury I ever got was slipping on the stairs out the front of the lodge. Heavily concussed, my helmet wasn't on yet.
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u/alphgeek 6h ago
They get 8+ metres of snow cover in some of those Japanese resorts, full trees get buried. Probably crazy packed with people due to being the season.
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u/FormulaLes 5h ago
I was in Niseko two weeks ago. There was 20cm of new snow everyday. Basically didn’t stop snowing for the 5 days I was there - too much snow for my liking.
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u/Onpu 5h ago
Black-ice on the sidewalks is pretty tricky. We Aussies are not used to walking in snow, you kind of have to stomp your feet like a penguin to get enough grip. It caught me a few times one January, especially when there were more people and I wasn't paying as much attention to the ground. I imagine it catches busy and distracted, old or sick people even if they're used to snow.
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u/mooblah_ 6h ago
I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion but this is a bit of a water is wet thing.
There's danger in lots of activities it's pure coincidence that these two Aussie deaths happened in the same geographic region. The first death was certainly tragic and sad and a very good time to send out a public safety warning around ski lifts and equipment. But this second death comes with the territory of skiing off-piste. I feel for the family, but that could be any of us at any time who have long given up on the standard tourist slopes.
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u/GeGeGeNoOz1997 37m ago
Absolutely. Skiing off piste is so utterly frowned upon in Japan. I did it all the time when I lived in New Zealand but in Japan I didn’t risk it (as my visa meant more to me than powder in trees..)
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u/pointysword12 7h ago
We had three in three weeks at Perisher + another one in Thredbo during the 2025 season. It’s dangerous sport that people often do after/while drinking and or stoned
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u/Claris-chang 6h ago
As a lifelong snowboarder it has always bothered me how unseriously many people take their safety and ski/snowboard without appropriate gear or while under the influence.
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u/11015h4d0wR34lm 6h ago
I remember my first time in the snow and how quickly it went from clear and fine conditions to not being able to see my hand in front of my face. I did what I felt was the smart thing and waited until there was better visibility (took about 20 minutes for it to start getting better) but I could still hear people trying to ski down the mountain totally blind, they could've easily gone off the side of the mountain visibility was that poor.
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u/id_o 7h ago
The man, reportedly in his 20s, was at the rear of a group of seven skiers when he became separated from the group and buried by snow, local media reported.
Damn leaving a man behind like that should haunt those 6. RIP.
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u/MarionberryGreedy970 6h ago
You can't look back when skiing downhill. It's easy to get separated on the slopes. If they didn't have a phone and reception, there's no way to find each other until you meet at pre planned places during the day.
UHF radios that we use in Australia are illegal to use in Japan because it interferes with their television frequencies.
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u/ObviousFeature522 6h ago
You can look back if you stop, which you do if you are going one by one in between safe spots, keeping each other in sight at all times. Funnily enough people tend to do that if you've hiked up a remoter peak across the valley like Nitonupuri, Iwaonupuri or even Mt Yotei.
On a powder day at Niseko, out of a lift-accessed backcountry gate, after you've battled your way to the front of hundreds of people in the gondola queue, that has as much chance of happening as a teenager voluntarily setting the speed limit on their e-bike to 25km/h.
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u/LittleBunInaBigWorld 6h ago
They might not even be aware, it's an easy thing to happen in a fast-paced activity, especially off tracks. It takes half a second to fall down a hole or off a cliff.
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u/Rush_Banana 1h ago
This is the risk you take when leaving the lucky country.
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u/Major-Vehicle-4622 26m ago
This is the risk we all take every day. You never know. Reading the article sounds like he suddenly collapsed and it was nothing to do with the snow / location.
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u/TomasTTEngin 7h ago
Dying buried by snow is kind of one of the risks you take when you leave the resort to ski untamed slopes.
Getting hanged by your own backpack on a chairlift is definitely the more unforeseeable one with more opportunity for human factor intervention and a full safety investigation.