Japan Part 1: Skiing in Niseko/Western Hokkaido
After years of declining trips to Japan and regretting not going, I finally made it out there this season to decide for myself if it was worth the hype. The first stop was Niseko, the town and its namesake biggest/most famous ski resort in Hokkaido, and perhaps what comes to mind when one hears the word “Japow” (Japan + powder).
Unfortunately, we came at the tail end of a long dry spell (following one of the snowiest Decembers in Japan on record), so not the powdery conditions we expected to start our trip. I was also completely thrashed from the flu, having come back from Mexico City just a couple days before arriving to Japan. Finally, I had an MCL sprain, which made me uncertain about how much it would hold me back.
On the bright side, the clear days gave us great views and the chance to ski Mt. Yotei, the prominent volcano seen from town. And the dud days, of which I’d count two, allowed me to get my bearings straight given that I only had two days of warmup back home.
A quick breakdown of our days:
- Yotei-zan: The large volcano that appears in the background of any quintessential picture/video when skiing in Niseko. This day was our only opportunity to see/ski this mountain in full before we lost views for the rest of the trip. Some friends speculated that the lack of glacial carving made this mountain much more symmetric compared to our familiar volcanos back home.
- Iwanai-dake: A sync up with another group of friends to ski funky windbuffed snow, dud of a day. Interesting resort situation where the only skiing “inbounds” is accessed by a snowcat.
- Shiribetsu: Another short day skiing Yotei’s volcanic neighbor in Rusutsu, another dud day skiing inconsistent snow.
- Chisenupuri + Tonopuri: Finally some powder! Battling the wind and wind effected snow on the east side of Chisenupuri, then finding great tree skiing on the west side of Tonopuri. This is what I imagine when I think of backcountry skiing in Niseko: relatively unimposing terrain with the snow + ambience to make up for it.
- Kiroro: Skiing the deepest powder of my life on an unnamed ridge west of the resort. One of three days where I actually needed goggles haha.
It’s apparent from going back and reviewing these photos that the views weren’t that great given that this side of the island lacks the epicness and scale of other mountain ranges, but more thoughts on skiing in Hokkaido generally in part 2.
Our first view of Yotei-zan! I always love road views of big mountains.
And its neighbor Shiribetsu, which we would also ski
Starting up the NE side of Yotei-zan
Yep, Shiribetsu appears much smaller when seen from Yotei
Cute little white farms, with Yoichi-dake prominent in the distance
Into the crater of Yotei, which wasn’t great skiing but novel nonetheless
Partial view of Lake Toya to the south
Very manual avalanche mitigation seen from the road.
One thing I did notice was the number of older men (50s - 60s) doing the manual labor/road work out here.
The Pacific Ocean seen from Iwanai
Nice uniform tree farm while en route to Shiribetsu
A sizable glide crack on Shiribetsu.
We were told while glide cracks are not rare in Japan, we’d be seeing them more than usual for this time of year given the long dry spell.
No more full views of Yotei since our first day here
Easy skinning after trenching in Kiroro. Probably the deepest snow I’ve skied and the hardest trailbreaking conditions I’ve encountered yet (and I did very little that day).
Hard to get the colors from the phone camera but these trees with the red berries are so cool (Japanese Rowan)
Deep day with a great crew!
