Furepe Waterfall (Furepe-no-taki [フレペの滝])

Shiretoko National Park, Hokkaido, Japan

About Furepe Waterfall (Furepe-no-taki [フレペの滝])


Hiking Distance: tour
Suggested Time:

Date first visited: 2009-06-08
Date last visited: 2009-06-08

Waterfall Latitude: 44.09671
Waterfall Longitude: 145.01403

Waterfall Safety and Common Sense

The Furepe Waterfall (Furepe-no-taki [フレペの滝]) was kind of a percolating spring waterfall that seeped out of the sea-battered cliffs and right into the Sea of Okhotsk.

Due to the delicate nature of the falls, the Japanese translation of “furepe” was said to be something like “maiden’s tears”.

Shiretoko_tour_006_06072009 - The springs seeping out of the sea cliffs as the Furepe Waterfall
The springs seeping out of the sea cliffs as the Furepe Waterfall

Therefore, this waterfall kind of blended in with other waterfalls that we saw on the boat tour of Shiretoko’s coastline, which started from Utoro.

Like with the Kamuiwakka-no-taki, I’ve included a separate page for this falls instead of clumping it with the other Shiretoko Waterfalls.

That’s because it was possible to experience this falls from land as well as by boat.

However, unlike with Kamuiwakka-no-taki, it was our fault for completely overlooking the trail that we could’ve done to get to the top of Furepe-no-taki by land on our first visit while bear activity prevented us from visiting it 14 years later!

Shiretoko_tour_017_06072009 - More springs seeping out of the sea cliffs around the Furepe Waterfall
More springs seeping out of the sea cliffs around the Furepe Waterfall

I guess this oversight was a result of how much there was to see and do in the Shiretoko-hanto.

In any case, as far as the boat tour was concerned, at least the benefit of doing this was that we could get cleaner frontal views of the Furepe Waterfall.

The challenge was getting a decent photo (i.e. not blurry or awkwardly composed) with the bobbing of the boat.

This especially made things difficult on Julie’s slow point-and-shoot camera, but even timing it on my much faster DSLR was still non-trivial.

In case you’re wondering, had we visited the top of Furepe-no-taki by land, we would’ve taken a short 20-minute walking path that began from right behind the Shiretoko Nature Center.

Shiretoko_tour_013_06072009 - Another seeping sea cliff waterfall that had some algal colors suggesting this particular part of the falls might be more permanent than the other parts of the Furepe Waterfall
Another seeping sea cliff waterfall that had some algal colors suggesting this particular part of the falls might be more permanent than the other parts of the Furepe Waterfall

The main benefit of visiting the falls in this manner was that we would’ve had nice coastal views agsinst the context of the Sea of Okhotsk.

Maybe one of these days, we’ll come back here and try to do it this day (and not be thwarted by bears).

Authorities

The Furepe Waterfall resides near Shari in the Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. It is administered by the Shiretoko National Park. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Ministry of the Environment website.

Shiretoko_015_07162023 - It wasn't for lack of trying, but our attempt at visiting the Furepe Waterfall in July 2023 was thwarted by bear activity, which caused the closure of this trail!
Shiretoko_tour_336_06072009 - More distant view of the Furepe Waterfall
Shiretoko_tour_010_06072009 - As we were around the Furepe Waterfall, we saw other seeping waterfalls making their way down the cliff face
Shiretoko_tour_012_06072009 - Another one of the seeping waterfalls near the Furepe Waterfall.  I believe this one was called the Man's Tears
Shiretoko_tour_014_06072009 - More contextual look at a fairly high volume seeping cliff waterfall prior to Furepe-no-taki
Shiretoko_tour_035_06072009 - Some curved sea cliff that might have supported an additional strand of seeping springs into the Sea of Okhotsk
Shiretoko_tour_341_06072009 - Looking back at the town of Utoro and a roadside waterfall as the Shiretoko boat tour was about to end in town
Shiretoko_Goko_005_06072009 - After having visited the Shiretoko Five Lakes, we completely overlooked the nature trail to the top of Furepe-no-taki.  So I guess we could've blamed that place for our incomplete writeup of the Furepe Falls


For the boat excursion, see the Kamuiwakka Waterfall page for details.

For the Nature Walk, the Shiretoko Nature Center was about 5km north from Utoro near the intersection of the road going to the Shiretoko Go-ko (Five Lakes) and the road heading to the east side of Shiretoko-hanto.

Shiretoko_001_07162023 - For the land-based method of experiencing the Furepe Waterfall, it begins behind the Shiretoko Nature Center
For the land-based method of experiencing the Furepe Waterfall, it begins behind the Shiretoko Nature Center

For geographical context, it took us a pretty brutally long and slow 5 hours of driving to get from Asahikawa to Utoro by way of Abashiri and Shari. Asahikawa was 137km (2 hours by car or 2 hours by train) northeast of Sapporo. Sapporo was about 9.5 hours by train or 90 minutes by flight from Tokyo. It was also possible to fly to Sapporo from Osaka (under 2 hours) or Kobe (2 hours; this was how we did it on our trip).

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Tagged with: shiretoko, utoro, shiretoko go-ko, five lakes, national park, hokkaido, furepe, visitor center, okhotsk, japan, waterfall



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