Lake Shikotsu and Chitose

Hokkaido, Japan · Lake, Mountain

A 360-metre-deep caldera lake — Japan's second deepest — that never freezes and that wins the national water-quality ranking almost every year: you can see the bottom from a canoe and dive it in a drysuit. It sits 40 minutes from New Chitose Airport between the Tarumae and Eniwa volcanoes, and in winter ice grown by spraying the lake's own water is lit up after dark at the Hyoto Matsuri.

The essentials

Getting there

Bus — This is the closest destination to New Chitose Airport, Hokkaido's gateway: 40 minutes by car (about 30 km via Route 36 and Prefectural Route 16) and roughly 55 minutes on a direct bus with no changes. The bus is Hokkaido Chuo Bus's Shikotsuko Line (services 空4/空5): it leaves the airport from stop 28 in the domestic terminal and stop 85 in the international one, calls at JR Chitose Station and ends on the lakeshore at Shikotsuko Onsen. It costs around ¥1,050 from the airport and about ¥950 from Chitose Station (44 minutes). What matters most is the frequency: only four departures a day each way, six at weekends and on holidays, the first around 9:00 and the last one back in mid-afternoon; services are increased during the ice festival month. A taxi from the airport runs ¥9,000-10,000. There is no year-round direct route bus from Sapporo: the usual way is the Rapid Airport train to Chitose (31 minutes, ¥970) then the bus, about two hours in all; by car it is 70 minutes on Route 453. From Tokyo, fly into New Chitose and take the same bus. Within the destination, Shikotsuko Onsen village is walkable, but Marukoma Onsen, Bifue, the mountain trailheads and Chitose city itself need a car, a taxi or the handful of city buses. All of which makes it an excellent first or last stop on a trip: land, sleep by the lake, and carry on to Sapporo, Noboribetsu or Toya the next day.

What it is genuinely strong in

🥾 Active nature

Frequently asked questions about Lake Shikotsu and Chitose

What to do in Lake Shikotsu and Chitose: 25 activities

• Clear-bottomed kayaking on the lake 2 h must-see booking

  Two hours in a transparent-hulled kayak over water clear enough to make out sunken logs and gravel several metres down. About ¥8,000 per person (¥8,500 July to September, ¥10,000 solo, ¥5,000 for children aged 4-12), gear included, and it runs in winter too because the lake never freezes. Online booking required; departures every two hours from 9:00.

• Hyoto Matsuri, the Shikotsu ice festival 2 h must-see only 31 Jan - 23 Feb

  31 January to 23 February in 2026 (30 January to 23 February in 2027), open 10:00-20:00 with the illumination from 16:30 to 20:00. The pieces are not carved: water from the lake is sprayed over frames for weeks until the ice grows into the turquoise blue only Shikotsu water gives. A ¥1,000 donation from junior high age up, free for primary school children; a bookable 'Hyoto Blue Liner' shuttle runs from the airport and Chitose Station.

• The Shikotsuko Onsen shoreline and the Yamasen bridge 1.5 h must-see

  The lakeside walk through Shikotsuko Onsen village, with Mt Eniwa straight ahead and Mt Tarumae off to the left, and the red lattice Yamasen bridge across the mouth of the Chitose River: a reused iron bridge that served Oji Paper's forestry railway from 1908 to 1951 and is now a footbridge and a piece of listed industrial heritage. A small museum about that railway stands beside it. Free, at any hour.

• Chitose Salmon Aquarium 1.5 h Hanazono, Chitose · 35 min

  The largest freshwater aquarium in Hokkaido, with some 10,000 creatures, but what makes it unique is the underwater observation zone: windows opening straight onto the bed of the Chitose River, so what you watch is the real river, with salmon running upstream in autumn. ¥800 adults, ¥500 high school and ¥300 primary and junior high; 9:00-17:00, ten minutes' walk from Chitose Station.

• Climbing Mt Tarumae 3.5 h only 25 Apr - 5 Nov

  From the seventh-station car park it is about 40 minutes to the crater rim and a little over an hour to the East Peak (1,022 m): bare ash, the lava dome steaming in the middle and the whole lake below. The dome itself is off limits, so you walk the outer ring. The track from the fifth to the seventh station closes from early November to mid-April and is often cut by heavy rain: check Tomakomai's notice before setting off.

• Marukoma Onsen, the bath at lake level 2 h

  An isolated ryokan on the north shore below Mt Eniwa, with a natural bath dug at the water's edge where the spring rises through the floor of the pool itself — there are only about twenty of these in Japan — and whose level rises and falls with the lake: chest-deep in spring, waist-deep in winter. Day bathing ¥1,200 (¥600 children), Friday to Sunday only, 10:00-14:00. Reached by car or taxi.

• The Indian water wheel and the salmon run 1 h Hanazono, Chitose · 35 min only 20 Aug - 10 Dec

  A fish-trap wheel planted mid-river in the Chitose since 1896, copied from those on the Columbia River: it turns four or five times a minute on the current alone, scooping spawning salmon into its baskets for the hatchery. It goes in around mid-July and comes out in early December; the spectacle runs September to November and is free to watch from the bank beside the aquarium.

• Underwater observation boat 1 h only 15 Apr - 3 Nov

  A thirty-minute cruise on a boat with windows below the waterline looking out at submerged lava walls and, with luck, the lake's chip. ¥2,000 for adults and ¥1,000 for primary school children; it sails from mid-April to 3 November and the last departure creeps earlier through the season (17:00 in summer, 15:30 by late October). Speedboats and swan pedal boats go from the same pier.

• Ashiri Chep Nomi, the first salmon ceremony 2 h Chitose · 35 min only one Sunday in early September

  Every September the Chitose Ainu association holds the ceremony welcoming the year's first salmon on the riverbank: prayers to the kamuy of the river, fishing with the marek harpoon and a sharing of the catch. It is not a show staged for visitors but a living rite of the community; you may attend, respectfully, and ask first before taking photographs.

• Autumn on the lake road 2 h only 5-31 Oct

  In October the mixed forest ringing the lake turns wholly red and yellow above a blue that never changes. The best stretch is Route 453 between Shikotsuko Onsen and Poropinai, and Route 276 towards Bifue; also the path where the Chitose River leaves the lake. Without a car, the airport bus covers part of that road and you can get off at Poropinai.

• Chip Matsuri, the lake-opening festival 3 h only one Sunday in late June

  The festival that opens the lake season, in Minamo Park at Shikotsuko Onsen from 11:00 to 16:30: music stages, ancient dances by the Chitose Ainu cultural preservation society and food stalls. In 2026 it fell on 21 June and was the 76th edition. Entry is free, and whether there is grilled chip depends on how that year's fishing went.

• Dawn SUP and Canadian canoeing 2 h booking only 1 May - 31 Oct

  First thing in the morning the lake goes glassy and the volcanoes appear twice over: that is what makes an early start worth it here. Two-hour SUP and Canadian canoe outings run ¥6,000-9,000 depending on operator, wetsuit included, launching from the Shikotsuko Onsen shore or from Poropinai. May to October, by reservation.

• Day bathing at Shikotsuko Onsen 2 h

  Shikotsuko Onsen water is sodium bicarbonate, slippery to the touch and the kind that leaves skin soft; the village is tiny and almost all hotels, so day bathing is very limited. Kyukamura Shikotsuko opens its bath to the public for ¥800 (¥400 primary school) from 11:00 to 14:30, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tsuruga Mizu no Uta only sells it with a buffet, weekends and holidays: ¥4,500 with the meal.

• Eating chip, the lake's sockeye 1 h

  Chip is himemasu, the sockeye salmon left landlocked in the lake, and it is fished only here, from June to August, under licence. It comes salt-grilled, as sashimi or over rice in the village's handful of restaurants, ¥1,500-3,000. Catches have been poor for years: in 2026 even the lake festival went without grilled chip, so ask before you sit down.

• Koke no Kairo, the moss ravine 3 h booking

  The famous Koke no Domon, the gorge with moss-lined walls, has been completely closed since the 2014 landslides and the city gave up on reopening it in 2019 — not even the viewing platform remains. What you can still walk is Koke no Kairo, another lava gully carpeted in moss, twenty minutes on foot from the road: unsigned, unpatrolled, with bears about, so the sensible way is with a local guide (about ¥6,000-8,000).

• Mt Eniwa as far as the second lookout 6 h

  The active 1,320-metre volcano that towers over the lake to the northwest. The summit is a crumbling rock spire and climbing it is discouraged: the route ends at the second lookout, around 1,200 metres, with Shikotsu and Lake Okotanpe below. Three hours up, two and a half down, steep ground with fixed ropes; check the Meteorological Agency's volcanic advisory before you go.

• New Chitose, the airport that is a day out 3 h Bibi, Chitose · 30 min

  New Chitose has a whole leisure floor inside the terminal: the Doraemon park, the Royce' chocolate factory and museum, a ramen alley with branches from Sapporo and Asahikawa, cinemas and an onsen looking out over the runway that stays open late. Genuinely useful on a long layover or before a dawn flight; most shops open 8:00-20:00.

• Shikotsu Visitor Center 1 h

  Free to enter and the clearest explanation of why this lake is the way it is: the caldera, the three volcanoes, why the water never freezes and what lives in it. They post the day's bear sightings and the real state of the trails, which changes often here, and run craft workshops using materials from the forest. Two minutes from the bus stop.

• Snowshoeing through the lakeside forest 3 h booking only 20 Dec - 20 Mar

  With the lake unfrozen and the forest under a metre of snow, guided snowshoe outings follow the shore, the streams that also stay ice-free and the Sakhalin fir stands, looking for fox and deer tracks. Two or three hours for around ¥5,000-7,000 with gear included, late December to mid-March. It fits well in the morning if the ice festival is the afternoon plan.

• Try-dive in fresh water 2.5 h booking

  Shikotsu is one of the few lakes in Japan where people genuinely dive: drysuits year round, winter visibility beyond twenty metres, and a volcanic-sand bottom studded with sunken trees. A try-dive costs around ¥15,000 for two and a half hours, roughly thirty minutes of it underwater, open to junior high age and up with a 150 cm height minimum. Check operator by operator: at least one has suspended it this season.

• Bifue: the west shore and its waterfall 3 h Bifue, Chitose · 35 min only 1 May - 31 Oct

  The western tip of the lake and the quietest part: a long beach of volcanic gravel where the water turns from clear to indigo within two metres, and one of the most sought-after campsites in Hokkaido, which now runs on online reservations with an opening date announced each spring. Bifue Falls is nearby, an hour there and back. Car only, via Route 276; season runs May to October.

• Chitose Shrine, above the river 1 h Chitose · 35 min

  The city's shrine, founded in the early 19th century and with more than two centuries of history, set high above the Chitose River a short walk from the aquarium: a stone stairway through old trees and a Benzaiten hall much visited by local business people. A free twenty-minute stop that pairs neatly with the water wheel.

• Michi-no-Eki Salmon Park, Chitose 1.5 h Hanazono, Chitose · 35 min

  The roadside station right beside the aquarium and the water wheel: produce from Chitose's farmers, salmon in every form (ruibe, ikura, smoked), local milk ice cream and an indoor play area for children. It is the practical place to eat or shop before a flight, with 233 free parking spaces.

• Mt Fuppushi from the north shore 6 h

  The wooded 1,102-metre cone that closes the lake to the south, and the hard climb of the area: the Kitayama route starts almost at water level and goes straight up, with fixed ropes near the top, about six hours round trip. It can be linked to Tarumae along the ridge. Brown bears are present throughout: carry a bell, do not go alone and check the visitor centre's daily notice.

• The lakeshore by bike 3 h only 1 May - 31 Oct

  You cannot ride right around the lake on road, but the stretch of Route 453 to Poropinai and Route 276 towards Bifue are among the finest rides in Hokkaido, water on one side and forest on the other. E-bikes rent in the village for around ¥3,000-4,000 a day; watch for lorries and for gradients that are not gentle.

What only happens on specific dates

• Hyoto Matsuri, the Shikotsu ice festival 31 Jan - 23 Feb
• Snowshoeing through the lakeside forest 20 Dec - 20 Mar
• Climbing Mt Tarumae 25 Apr - 5 Nov
• Underwater observation boat 15 Apr - 3 Nov
• Dawn SUP and Canadian canoeing 1 May - 31 Oct
• Bifue: the west shore and its waterfall 1 May - 31 Oct
• The lakeshore by bike 1 May - 31 Oct
• Chip Matsuri, the lake-opening festival one Sunday in late June
• The Indian water wheel and the salmon run 20 Aug - 10 Dec
• Ashiri Chep Nomi, the first salmon ceremony one Sunday in early September
• Autumn on the lake road 5-31 Oct

Chains well with

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