Drift ice walking in a dry suit is offered only in Utoro, on Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula, not in Abashiri or Rausu. Operators have published 2027 windows between February 1 and March 31, and Lantoko opens booking on November 15, 2026. Expect roughly 7,000 to 9,000 JPY per person, and aim for mid-February to early March.
You zip into a buoyant dry suit over your own clothes, follow a guide down to the shore, and step onto a floor of ice that is moving. For about a kilometre you cross floes that shift under your boots, then you lie down on one, or slip into the water and float between them. That is drift ice walking, and it is a smaller, stranger thing than most winter itineraries make it sound. You are less a hiker than a passenger on a moving surface.
It also exists in exactly one place. Every dry suit operator we found is based in Utoro, on the Sea of Okhotsk side of the Shiretoko Peninsula. Abashiri has icebreaker cruises, a museum and a festival. Rausu has eagle and drift ice cruises. Neither sells a walk. This guide sorts out which is which, what has actually been published for 2027, and how to plan around ice that nobody can promise you.
Where you can really walk on drift ice
The ice is born far to the north, near the mouth of the Amur River, and wind and current carry it south into the Sea of Okhotsk. Shiretoko is described as the southernmost region of the northern hemisphere where seasonal sea ice appears, which is part of why the peninsula is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The ice usually reaches the coast by late January and is gone by early April.
Use Abashiri as a gateway or as your cruise option, not as your walking base. From Abashiri the walk starts about 40 minutes away by train to Shiretoko-Shari, followed by a bus of roughly an hour to Utoro.
What is confirmed for 2027 (and what is not)
Nobody publishes a single opening day for drift ice walking, because the ice decides. What exists are operator windows, and they differ in how firm they are as of 30 September 2026.
Two dated events are firm. The Abashiri Okhotsk Drift Ice Festival is set for 6 and 7 February 2027 on the Abashiri commercial port wharf, with drift ice kayaking and ring toss among its activities, and the times are tentative. The Shiretoko Nature Cruise in Rausu shows “Winter 2027” headings for early-morning cruises from 30 January to 10 March and roughly 8:30 cruises from 23 January to 14 March, but part of the same page still shows last season’s dates, so check the operator before you commit. One more festival, in Monbetsu, is listed for 11 to 14 February 2027 by a single source only.
Treat all of this as a starting point. Fares, slots and cancellation terms are set by each operator, and they update pages without notice.
Choosing your walk: prices, eligibility, timing
Current listings sit roughly between 7,000 and 9,000 JPY per person, dry suit included. Confirm the 2027 fare at booking.
Requirements differ by operator, so read the one you book. Height and weight matter because the suit has to fit, and both Lantoko and Shinra ask for them at booking.
Plan for mid-February to early March. That is when the ice is most reliably at the shore. The March end of a window is the shaky end: Lantoko decides its 15 to 20 March dates from the ice and only opens them in early March. If you can arrive by 10 to 15 February, you avoid most of the thaw risk. Book a weekday if you can, since Picchio has noted that weekends and holidays fill first.
Expect about 60 to 90 minutes on the ice, plus time to suit up, so count on roughly two hours in total. It is cold. Eastern Hokkaido runs -10 to -15 C before wind chill, and Picchio warns that the apparent temperature can reach -20 C. Wear a thermal base layer, an insulating mid layer, a hat that covers your ears and gloves. The suit keeps you afloat but clothes can still get damp in rare cases.
We checked the Viator catalogue for Utoro, Abashiri and Rausu. There is no dry suit drift ice walking product on it. Book the walk directly with one of the local operators above. The Viator activities below are complements: winter wildlife in Shiretoko, Kushiro and Sapporo, and one two-day drift ice excursion that is not a walk.
Around Utoro: snowshoes and eagles
Good operators tell you plainly that the walk can be cancelled, and the smartest plan builds a fallback into the same trip. Utoro has two that are easy to book.
Furepe Falls snowshoe hike
Furepe Falls is the standard alternative when the ice is out or a storm closes the shore. This three-hour guided snowshoe hike includes wildlife watching, and the boots, winter clothing and gloves can be provided if you tell the operator your sizes. Meeting is at your hotel or the roadside station. It ran with availability on all 50 days we checked between 20 January and 10 March 2027.
Sea eagle watching from Utoro
Steller’s sea eagles and white-tailed eagles gather on the Okhotsk coast in winter. This guided eagle watching tour meets at the Utoro roadside station and includes binoculars. It has five reviews so far, all five-star, and availability on 49 of the 50 days checked.
Winter wildlife on the drift ice coast
Drift ice is not only a landscape. It calms the water off the coast and carries nutrients from the northern Okhotsk Sea, and eagles rest on it. The Steller’s sea eagle is classed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, and up to about 2,000 are thought to winter in Hokkaido.
Rausu, on the other coast of the peninsula, is the eagle stronghold. The Shiretoko Nature Cruise says about 700 white-tailed and Steller’s eagles are in the area in winter, with high sighting odds. A one-hour cruise costs 5,000 JPY for adults on the operator’s page, and a 2.5-hour photographer-oriented cruise costs 12,000 JPY with a camera. Rausu usually gets less ice than Utoro, and in 2026 the Ministry of the Environment’s visitor centre described it as thin and broken. So think of Rausu as an eagle trip that may include ice, not an ice-walking trip.
Do not plan around orcas. Up to about 300 visit the Nemuro Strait each year, but the best season is April to June. A pod was reported trapped in ice off Rausu in February 2024, which is a story, not a schedule. Spotted seals and ribbon seals appear in early spring, and clione, the “sea angels”, around March.
Farther south, Kushiro is a feasible extension for anyone who wants another winter wildlife day: the marsh’s cranes are feeding in that season.
Kushiro marsh: red-crowned cranes and eagles
A private guided day among the red-crowned cranes at Kushiro marsh, with an English-speaking nature guide, binoculars and transport included. It has 49 reviews at a 5.0 rating, and it was available on all 50 days checked. It is a long way from Utoro, so treat it as a separate stop rather than a day trip.
Reaching Utoro in winter
Fly to Memanbetsu (MMB), the closest airport, about 100 km west of Shiretoko, with flights from Tokyo, Sapporo and Nagoya. Nakashibetsu is about 75 minutes by road from Rausu, and Kushiro is roughly 2.5 hours to Shari by train. Do not count on the Shiretoko Airport Liner bus (MMB to Utoro, about 2 hours, 3,500 JPY in 2026): its 2026 run was 17 January to 8 March, and the 2027 winter dates are not published.
By train, the Limited Express Okhotsk takes about 5 hours 20 minutes from Sapporo to Abashiri. From there the local train reaches Shiretoko-Shari in about 40 minutes (1,040 JPY), then the bus to Utoro takes about an hour. Driving is possible but roads are heavy with snow, and the Trans-Shiretoko Road between Utoro and Rausu (Route 334) is closed from November to late April. The detour via Konpoku Pass takes about two hours.
From Sapporo, the realistic packaged way to see the ice is a two-day trip. Be clear about what it is.
Two-day Sapporo to Okhotsk drift ice tour
This overnight excursion from Sapporo includes a touch-the-ice experience and an Aurora icebreaker cruise, with an overnight hotel stay and meals. It is not a dry suit walk, and its guide speaks Japanese with a translation app. It has no reviews yet on Viator and was open on 30 of the 50 days checked, starting from 29 January. We include it for its logistics rather than any track record.
If you are basing yourself in Sapporo before or after, two easy add-ons are winter day trips.
Sapporo-based winter days
Lake Shikotsu’s ice festival is a bus day from Sapporo, with availability on 25 of 50 days checked from 30 January. For a flexible city day, a private local guide or a licensed guide suits a first afternoon after a long flight.
Cruise backups: Aurora, Garinko-go and Rausu
The icebreaker cruise is the ice experience you can count on if the walk fails, because the ship makes its own way. Abashiri’s Aurora lasts about an hour and cost 5,000 JPY in January and March and 6,000 in February in the 2026 season. Garinko-go in Monbetsu is smaller and more intimate but harder to reach by land, and it has no rail link. Neither has published a 2027 schedule or fare. The Rausu eagle cruise above is the third option.
A sensible fallback stack for one trip is a walk on a weekday early in your stay, a cruise or snowshoe day as the second option, and one spare night before your flight.
Sleeping and booking
Utoro is the base for walking. Operators meet at the Michi-no-Eki Utoro Siretoko roadside station, and several offer pickup from Utoro hotels. Hotels in the town run from about 12,000 to 100,000 JPY per person on half-board depending on the property, based on booking-site ranges rather than 2027 rates, so use them for scale only. Book the hotel and the walk together, and choose a walk date at least a day or two before you need to leave.
Lantoko sells online with card payment. Picchio takes bookings until 9 pm the day before. Shinra asks for height and weight at booking so the right suit is ready. For a sense of the wider Hokkaido winter, see the Niseko ski season guide, which covers Sapporo access and onsen after a cold day.
The changing ice: what climate data says
The trend is down, and 2026 showed how variable one season can be. Do not build a rigid trip around a single walking date.
The Japan Meteorological Agency reports that maximum sea ice extent in the Sea of Okhotsk fell by about 0.059 million km² per decade over 1971 to 2026, roughly 3.7 percent of the sea’s area per decade. It adds that year-to-year variation is large and that longer data are needed to attribute the trend to global warming.
The 2026 season was mixed. Abashiri City announced the first drift ice sighting on 22 January and first landfast ice on 1 February, about three days earlier than the 4 February normal. Yet the Sea of Okhotsk extent was low that winter, one analysis of satellite data called it a record low from March, and Lantoko cancelled about 12.5 of 42 operating days to blizzards and shifting ice. One more detail few guides mention: the JMA ended its “first day” sea ice announcements on 31 May 2025, so the official first-ice date in 2027 will presumably come from Abashiri City.
The seasonal outlook for winter 2026-27 leans mild, according to a trade-press summary of the JMA outlook, but the ice season itself cannot be forecast this far ahead. Check the Japan Coast Guard’s sea ice information page during the winter (it ran from 19 December 2025 to 22 April 2026 last season) and your operator’s blog in the days before you fly.
Checklist before you book
- Choose Utoro as your walking base; Abashiri and Rausu are cruise options
- Target mid-February to early March, with a spare day in the trip
- Book Lantoko on 15 November 2026 at 12:00 JST, or check Picchio and Shinra from October
- Give your height and weight when booking so the dry suit fits
- Pack thermal base layers, a hat over the ears and gloves; expect -10 to -15 C before wind chill
- Book a weekday slot and keep a cruise or snowshoe fallback
- Do not plan around orcas in winter; they are an April to June story
- Check each operator's page for its 2027 fare and cancellation terms
If you like your winters cold and unpredictable, two other Pixidia Trails guides cover ice you can enter: the Iceland crystal ice cave season and the Tromso northern lights season.
Practical info
FAQ
When is the drift ice walking season in 2027?
Utoro operators have published windows that fall inside February 1 to March 31, 2027. Lantoko runs February 1 to March 15 and Shiretoko Picchio runs February 5 to March 31. Shinra lists February 1 to March 31 without printing a year. Ice usually peaks from mid-February to early March, and whether a walk actually runs depends on the ice that morning.
When can I book a 2027 drift ice walk?
Lantoko opens online booking on November 15, 2026 at 12:00 JST. Shiretoko Picchio says drift ice walking reservations open from October 2026 but gives no exact day. Weekends and holidays fill first, so a weekday slot is easier to get. Check each operator's own page for the current status.
How much does drift ice walking cost?
Current listings sit around 7,000 to 9,000 JPY per person: Picchio from 7,000, Lantoko and Shinra 8,000, Gojiraiwa Kanko 9,000 (its 2026 price). Each operator sets its 2027 fare, so confirm it at booking. The dry suit is included.
Do I need to swim or be fit to walk on drift ice?
You do not need to swim, because the dry suit is buoyant. You do need to walk about one kilometre over uneven, shifting floes without assistance, which operators describe as short-hike fitness. Limits differ: Lantoko takes ages up to 70 and 130 to 185 cm, Picchio ages 6 to 74 on its main page and 130 to 190 cm, Shinra up to 74 and under 110 kg.
Can I walk on drift ice in Abashiri or Rausu?
No dry suit walk operator was found in either. Abashiri offers the Aurora icebreaker cruise, the Ryuhyo Museum and a festival on February 6 and 7, 2027. Rausu offers eagle and drift ice cruises. The walk itself starts in Utoro, about 40 minutes by train from Abashiri to Shiretoko-Shari, then a bus.
What happens if there is no ice or a storm?
Walks can be cancelled for ice movement or bad weather. In 2026 Lantoko cancelled about 12.5 of its 42 operating days, roughly 30 percent, and ended its season on March 14 instead of the planned March 20. Book a weekday, keep a spare day and have a cruise or snowshoe fallback ready.
Will I see orcas on a winter drift ice trip?
Do not count on it. Orcas visit the Nemuro Strait, but the best season is April to June. In winter the reliable wildlife is eagles: the Shiretoko Nature Cruise puts roughly 700 Steller's and white-tailed sea eagles in the area, and its cruises report high sighting odds.
Is the Sea of Okhotsk drift ice disappearing?
The long-term trend is down. The Japan Meteorological Agency reports that maximum sea ice extent in the Sea of Okhotsk has fallen about 3.7 percent of the sea's area per decade since 1971, with large year-to-year swings. Attribution to global warming needs longer data, according to the agency. It cannot forecast the 2027 ice this far ahead.
Sources
- Lantoko: 2026 season wrap-up and 2027 booking dates — Lantoko
- Shiretoko Picchio: Drift Ice Walking 360 (2027 period) — Shiretoko Picchio
- Shinra (Shiretoko Nature Office): ryuhyo walk — Shinra
- Gojiraiwa Kanko: drift ice tour — Gojiraiwa Kanko
- Japan Guide: Shiretoko drift ice — Japan Guide
- Japan Guide: access to Shiretoko — Japan Guide
- Shiretoko Nature Cruise: winter departures — Shiretoko Nature Cruise
- Abashiri Okhotsk Drift Ice Festival 2027 — Abashiri Tourism
- JMA: sea ice in the Sea of Okhotsk, long-term series — Japan Meteorological Agency
- Japan Coast Guard: Sea Ice Information Center — Japan Coast Guard
- Rausu Visitor Center: drift ice notice, February 2026 — Ministry of the Environment, Japan
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