Hokkaido · BieiNo.726★★★Open in map →

Shirogane Blue Pond

natureThe classic — done right

A pond in the hills of Biei where drowned larch trunks stand in milky blue water. It exists because of a flood-control dam rather than a landscape plan, and the colour is a side effect of what the streams above it carry.

FromAsahikawa Station
~1 hrJR + bus, ~20 min from Biei
Get off atBiei Station (JR Furano Line, then Dohoku Bus)
From there
Shirogane Blue Pond

Directions ↗

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Shirahige Falls, Shirogane Onsenlumoplank / CC0

The approach patha walk from the bus stop, through woodland to the water's edge
The drowned larchesbare pale trunks standing in the shallows where the forest was flooded
The water itselfa milky blue that shifts with the light, and clouds over after heavy rain or snowmelt
Shirahige Fallsfurther up the same bus route at Shirogane Onsen, where groundwater falls into the Biei River and feeds the colour downstream

How to actually get there

Asahikawa Station → Biei Station (JR Furano Line, local, about 32 min).
Biei Station → Shirogane Aoi-ike Iriguchi (Dohoku Bus for Shirogane Onsen, about 20 min).
Bus stop → the pond (on foot).
Continue up the same route to Shirahige Falls at Shirogane Onsen if the timetable allows.

JR Furano Line, then Dohoku Bus: Asahikawa Station →(JR Furano Line, local, about 32 min)→ Biei Station, then the Dohoku Bus bound for Shirogane Onsen as far as the Shirogane Aoi-ike Iriguchi stop, about 20 minutes. The pond is a walk on from there. Bus departures are limited, so read the timetable before you go.
Return by the same bus route: The Dohoku Bus runs back down to Biei Station, where JR Furano Line trains continue to Asahikawa. Departures are infrequent, so decide which bus you are taking back before you walk down to the water.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

The Blue Pond lies in the Shirogane district of Biei, in the hills below Mount Tokachi in central Hokkaido. Nothing about it was planned as scenery. Concrete check dams were laid along the Biei River to hold back volcanic mudflow, and water gathered behind one of them and spread into the woods. The larch and birch growing there were flooded and died standing, and their bare trunks still rise out of the surface. The colour has a physical cause: a stream carrying aluminium compounds meets the river, fine particles form in the mix, and those particles scatter the shorter blue wavelengths of light above a pale bed.

How to enjoy it

The pond is small and the walk beside it short, so it works as a stop rather than a day out. Buses from Biei take about 20 minutes each way, and adding Shirahige Falls further up the same route fills an afternoon. From late autumn through April the frozen surface is floodlit in the evening; at the time of checking the illumination ran from sunset to 21:00.

Background & history

Mount Tokachi is an active volcano, and the hazard it presents to the valleys below is not lava but mudflow — meltwater, ash and debris moving fast down the river. The check dams in the Shirogane district were built against exactly that, as protection works rather than as a park. The pool that formed behind one of them had no name and no official standing. People who came across it began calling it the Blue Pond, the name spread, and it is the name the town and the tourism association use today.

Before you go

Cash: The pond itself is free to enter and there is no gate on the path. The car park is paid and gated, with the fee posted at the entrance, and the operating hours differ between the summer and winter halves of the year.
Good to know: The site is outdoors with no shelter. After heavy rain or snowmelt the water turns cloudy and loses most of its colour, which is normal rather than bad luck. In winter the surface freezes and the evening floodlighting takes over; the cold here is serious, so dress for standing still.
Another way: By car it is about 20 minutes from Biei and about 40 minutes from Asahikawa Airport. From the airport, a Furano Bus reaches Biei Station in about 16 minutes if you are coming by rail from there.
After you get off: From the Shirogane Aoi-ike Iriguchi bus stop, a made path leads on foot to the pond beside the car park.

Nearby notes

Nature · Hokkaido★★★