A TOUR group was caught in an avalanche recently, with one person seriously injured, at one of Niseko’s most popular backcountry mountains.
The slide on Sunday, February 8 at the nearby Nitonupuri (southwest of Mt Annupuri) resulted in several people on a NOASC guided tour being caught in the avalanche and swept into a tree line.
A Japanese man on the tour broke his femur and was taken to hospital.
He was trapped 70cm beneath the slide, and was found by the guides via beacon after about five minutes trapped under the snow.
The owner of NOASC, Ross Carty, said he did not know the cause of the avalanche for sure, and said it ‘came out of nowhere’.
Carty said the group was following normal tracks (about 15 degrees slope angle) when the avalanche struck.
“It’s strange because the area we were in is normally stable and is a very popular and safe spot for tours, hiking and riding,” he said.
“We think it may have been caused by snow or ice falling from a tree, a skier above the fall line, or by the wind. We can’t be sure of the cause, though, and an investigation is under-way.”
The avalanche was 10m-wide at the top and 30m-wide once it came to rest 200m down the hill in some trees.
The night before the slide, about 30cm of snow fell in the area overnight, blown in by high winds.
The slide is the first serious avalanche in the Niseko region in some time to cause serious injury.
NOASC has decided to suspend backcountry tours for all of February, until investigations are completed and the area has once again been deemed safe.