February 17th - Charmant Hiuchi
It didn't snow that night but we were still hopeful to ski some powder, given the amazing day we'd had the day before. I had suggested we try the resort of Charmant Hiuchi, about 1 hour 20 minutes away from Akakura and the furthest resort away in our zone (our goal was to try as many of the 10 resorts that I had researched, as possible). From the research that I had done, it seemed to be the most under the radar place I could find, so I thought it might be a good option. I knew it had decent vertical (508m) and 1 high-speed quad and a couple of double chairs.
It was a bluebird day and we took the expressway north until we hit the ocean and then turned west. After a short drive along the coast we looped back around to the south and headed back into the mountains. It wasn't long until we started to see some seriously impressive views, the mountains were stunning. We went up several switchbacks and then could see the resort. We could see the main quad chair, a decent-sized baselodge and decent terrain, very open with only a few trees and a couple of groomers. Most of it was ungroomed but unfortunately it was tracked up pretty good.
Oh well, I'm sure we could find something if we poked around..... We walked through the baselodge and then found the ticket office outside. I think a full-day ticket was around $40. We were the only Westerners that I could see and it was pretty quiet. The chair was pretty fast and took us up to the top in a few minutes. At the top we saw another lodge and a ski patrol shack. There seemed to be a track going around the back of the building so we went for a quick walk. When we came around the corner, our jaws dropped at the absolutely stunning view of massive mountains behind. There was an active volcano with a little plume of smoke coming out of it. We could see ample backcountry zones and a few tracks. Looks like people were into some ski touring! This was one of the most impressive views I have seen from a ski area, we had no idea we were going to see this!
Time for a ski and to figure out where to find the snow. I think we did a quick lap inbounds and confirmed that it wasn't going to be super fun skiing, we'd want to look outside the resort for better snow. On the next lap, we found the boundary on the left side, it wasn't roped and there didn't seem to be any signs, so we dropped into the trees. There were a few tracks but of we stayed high, close to the ski area boundary, then we found some untouched lines. Lovely stuff! Snow quality was good, about 20cm's of settled snow that was dry due to the north-facing aspect.
Eventually we came to a traverse line back towards the resort. Given it was our first time in that zone, I felt it smart to take it back in, to get our bearings and not get too far out our first lap. The first lap was always going to be conservative to get everything mapped (I was tracking the run using Gaia Maps) and to know our entry/exit points. As we got closer to the boundary, we saw a couple of skiers arrive at our exit point. We stopped and they didn't move. Then I saw the uniforms, it was patrol. Hmmm, that was a bit of a worry, I didn't think we had done anything wrong but they were definitely waiting for us. Time to go see what was up......
They started talking in Japanese. I didn't know what they were saying but then they started making the X symbol. I pulled out my phone and fired up the good old Google gaijin translate. I apologized for any wrongdoing and asked them if we had done something wrong. They didn't seem too angry, but it would be good to find out if there was a problem so we could keep skiing. It was a long slow conversation, but it turns out they didn't mind us skiing outside the ski area, especially as we had backcountry gear, but we needed to fill out some paperwork and file a backcountry touring plan. No problem! We just needed to go back up to the ski patrol shack at the top of the lift and register.
We cycled back around and I went into the patrol shack. They were expecting us. The form included contact information and then a map of where we wanted to go. I marked off terrain that was in a zone above the resort and they said we could come back into the resort via a bridge much lower down. We could see most of it from the top of the resort and I could see a skin track already put in. So, off we went.
We had a lovely tour up on an existing track, through snow-clad birch. The higher we got, the better the views. The trees were all north-facing, so the snow was staying cold, even though it was pretty warm. We skinned for about 1.5 hours and then came to a steeper, open face and we decided that would be our drop-in point. We had some really nice turns and then had some lower angle turns through the trees. We had to keep staying right as the fall-line wanted to pull us left and into some drainage's. It flowed pretty well, with just one section where we had to do a decent sidestep to avoid a deep gully. We ended up at the same exit point we had hit before. We could see the bridge down lower but decided we'd take the easy out. Then we had a nice long lunch.
The guys were pretty spent so we didn't head back out for more. All in all, it had been a fun and adventurous day, with the highlight being the amazing scenery and lovely ski tour, plus making friends with the patrol. We had the somewhat long drive back and then headed into town for dinner. The forecast was worrying. There was no snow forecast for the next day but then a massive storm was coming in and it was forecast for torrential rain. Oh no! Anyway, more of that later, here's what the day looked like.....
Lovely views as we drove up to the resort
One high-speed quad is all you need to access all this great terrain. It was a shame it was all tracked up but I can definitely see the potential.
Stunning backcountry!
Top restaurant and patrol shack where we signed out to go into the backcountry
Spot the UFO! Osprey V-22 fly by.
Recent avalanche activity, we were going to ski a different aspect and more mellow terrain.
About to start the ski down. Our transition point.
Awesome skiing down this open face.
I'd like to ski that and that and that and that....
Checking out the potential of this zone. Definitely avalanche terrain in there! The active volcano is in the upper right of the photo.
- Matt