We wake up at 5:30am at Tokyo Disneyland and start getting ready for a travel day to Niseko, located on the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, Japan. At approx 5:43am the room really starts shaking, Amy’s in the bathroom and the girls are getting ready, the doors of the cupboard are banging and all I could say was “babe” in my most serious voice. It turns out to be a 5.3 magnitude earthquake, and we all felt the hotel really shaking. A few minutes later we went downstairs to check out and it was as if nothing had happened, everything was normal. No one was talking about it.
This started our travel day off with a bang, in front of us we had 3 trains, a flight and a 2.5 hour drive. We get to the airport nice and early for our flight, but turns out Jetstar Japan is also prone to delays, according to the staff it was for “aircraft rotation”, so our 10:50am flight departs at 12pm. A little bonus is the plane takes off to the north then does a climbing 360, giving everyone on board a nice view of Mount Fuji.
We knew the weather forecast for Hokkaido was predicting snow but we arrive at New Chitose airport (near Sapporo) in a snowstorm. Everything is white, and it is chucking down fat, fluffy snow flakes and all I can think of is nice fresh Japan powder snow. We have to get on a shuttle bus to go collect our car, and we set off into the blizzard. We tried to ask the staff if the more direct road through the mountains was open, but they didn’t really understand what we were saying.
It turns out yes the road was open and it was snowing a lot, but that didn’t stop the trucks from speeding through it. Here we are can barely see where the road is. We end up behind a big truck and he just takes off, further up we can see the tyre marks where he has overtaken someone but it is such treacherous conditions. On the way the signs warn us to keep an eye out for Foxes, Raccoons, Deer and Bears. They only thing we saw was some deer.
We arrive at our accommodation in the late afternoon (Friday), a 2 bed apartment about 10 minutes walk from the nearest lift in Grand Hirafu, and it is still snowing. We sort out our rental gear and grab some groceries and head to bed.
Saturday Snow report: 20cm – Temp -11C – The first morning the weather hasn’t improved, it is still snowing heavily, and the wind is gusting up to 35km/h, so they decide to not open any upper mountain lifts. This means everyone is crowded onto the bottom entry level lifts which is chaos. We still got lift passes as we needed to get our skiing legs back but it means everyone is crammed on the lower 3rd of the mountain.
Sunday Snow report: 20cm – Temp -11C – The 2nd morning is not much better, but the wind has dropped a touch, meaning they decide to open all the lifts. Importantly though none of the back country gates were open. This means the top 2/3rds of the mountain has had something like 40cm of snow and no one up there for 2 days. It is busy as this is were everyone is parked today, the fresh deep powder is fantastic, I had to learn how to turn in proper powder. Off piste it is beautiful lines through the trees, even Amy and the girls did some adventurous lines into the tree sections between 2 runs.
Monday Snow report: 15cm – Temp -7C – The whole mountain is open, including some of the back country gates, meaning everyone is a little more spread out. I explored a little more, whilst Amy and the girls did some runs in the same area as yesterday. It is still snowing and there are still very strong wind gusts but they are not as frequent now. I still managed to find some nice clean powder runs at this time and it is amazing.
Tuesday Snow report: 15cm – Temp -3C – The weather is looking far, far better, it looks like it will stop snowing soon. We have a bit of a lazy start to the morning, grab coffee from the best coffee place in Japan, pack up the car and head to Annupuri, another resort 10 minutes away. The main groomed runs here are very firm and icy in some patches. I decide to head straight to the back country gate (G7) to explore. It is a little chopped up but I find some very nice spots that are untouched. The next run I take Ella (she was on ski’s for the first few days here to take advantage of the powder) to this gate and she really likes it too. The beginning is quite steep, but you can make your way along a fence line and there opens a nice powder field with nicely spaced trees. The run out back to the bottom gondola is fast and fun, nice and smooth tracks to follow with natural undulations.
In the afternoon, I take Ella out another back country gate (G8) and this is even better than the morning runs. After quite a sketchy fast entry point, then a long traverse across a steep tree area, a large powder bowl, then another steep area, this really nice gladed ridge line opens up and not many people had been here. But before we get to the good bit, whilst traversing deep snow, like over knee deep, Ella somehow managed to fall face first down the mountain in the deep snow. I couldn’t quite see her, but she yelled out to me to stop, eventually she comes up over the crest and then tries to click her ski’s back in and it was too soft. I made her a firm spot with my board and she hiked over and eventually got her ski’s clicked back in. Then the pain was all worth it as we skied down this beautiful powder Ridge, making our own lines in the fresh snow. This is the best skiing I have ever done. The ski out was really fun too, down a steepish section through a flat area full of untouched powder, then the run out through the fast natural undulations back to the base of the mountain. As a nice bonus on the drive home the weather clears enough for a nice view of Mount Yotei. This active volcano has a similar shape to Mount Fuji, and is also covered in clouds most of the time.
Wednesday Snow report: 0cm – Temp +3C – Today we went to a different mountain called Moiwa, as Ella wanted to continue learning to snowboard. This turns out to be a good decision, nice bluebird day, spring conditions, not too cold, and the best bit is there are no crowds. The snow starts out perfect for Ella, easy for her to work on her turns. After lunch it got a bit icy due to the sun beating down on the snow so we opt for an early finish. There is due a few more cm of snow tonight on the forecast, Ella has a 2 hour lesson tomorrow at Moiwa to hopefully get her moving down the mountain with a bit more confidence, then on Friday we start the journey home.
I love coming to Japan, the food is good, the local beer even better, convenience stores are always fantastic for interesting snacks, sandwiches and of course rice balls. It is easy to drive around and in the end the we got some powder skiing of which Japan is famous for. Our 4 runs on Tuesday made it all worthwhile. There were many problems with gear, many visits to the rental shop, eventually I got a snowboard I was really happy with, Amy got her boots swapped, and of course Ella changed from Skis to a snowboard. Today she really started linking her turns and in the future will probably snowboard only. The phone coverage and internet has been patchy, they have a big focus on recycling and rubbish (there are no bins anywhere) yet they have the most plastic packaging I have ever seen, everything is individually wrapped. Anyway I will sign off here, we will be home again soon.
