Jan 29th – Travel to Hakodate
We dropped off the guests at the airport before 9am and then hit the road to head south, down to the Hakodate area. I’ve never been there before and we have 3 days to explore the area and get some more skiing in. Then we will take the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Shin-Hakodate Station to Shin-Aomori Station, passing under the Sea of Japan on the 1st February to start our Tohoku adventure. Should be a fun time.
On the way to Hakodate, we stopped off at Sun Laiva ski area (many different spellings), near Noboribetsu. It was about a 1.5-hour drive from Chitose and we had to be diverted off the freeway as it was closed for a section. We drove along the ocean road and that was pretty cool to see. It was snowing hard with high winds and rough seas. The waves were crashing over the breakwaters and it was a powerful scene. We headed up into the mountains and finally came to Sun Laiva resort.
It’s a small resort with only 3 chairs, but the upper chair (we found out) is not working. That limits the vertical considerably (it was a healthy 690m vertical before that) and you can’t reach the upper part of the mountain without skinning. Looking at Google Earth, there is some tasty terrain and double the vertical up higher, plus plenty of open areas down lower in the trees. The terrain is very steep as well. Unfortunately, with only a 50cm base down lower, it was completely choked by sassa grass in the trees, so off-piste shenanigans were out. Looking at the historical snow depths, this is actually a typical snow year, so they must not get much snow in general. I don’t think the trees and open areas next to the upper chair would ever be skiable.
We did a couple of runs up the main chair enjoying soft but heavy powder. There was only a handful of other people out skiing, oddly enough, there were two more gaijin’s out skiing (they seemed to have a local Japanese guide with them). We stopped for a quick lunch (really tasty food and all under $10, I had a nice Katsudon) and then headed back up for more. We had our avi gear and touring setups with us this time so took the chair up again and headed to the left, out of sight of the lift shack (who knows if uphill is allowed at this resort, but we’d seen old tracks up high and figured if we kept to ourselves, then we should be ok) to put the skins on. There is an old ski run that we took to skin up; it was pretty mellow at first, but then there was a 100m section that was really steep.
The snow felt really hollow and punchy probing around with our poles, so we decided to dig a pit and do some stability tests. It was about 1m deep and there were several layers with some crusts and facets growing underneath. It was a pretty complex snowpack, one of the worst I’ve seen. We did a couple of ECT (Extended Column Tests) and managed to get an ECTP24 on the second go. It propagated across the entire block. No Bueno. We’d have to be careful on the way up this steep face and went one at a time, hugging the left side, next to the trees as close as we could. The track was brutally steep with some nasty kickturns, just to stay off the main face. It was energy sapping but we made it up to the top, then the track mellowed out substantially and it was very cruisy.
We skinned over to the top of the abandoned chair and had a quick look around. The run off the other side looked a little better, so we would take
that line down. We transitioned and then got ready to ride down. I filmed Jeremy with my helmet cam and then we skied the steeper pitch one at a time, to do some filming. This side was definitely the better to ski and the pitch was a lot more consistent than the way we came up (which was flat, then steep, then flat at the top). There were bushes sticking out but the snow was soft (heavy powder) and the coverage decent. We didn’t hit any rocks or anything like that and enjoyed fun, bouncy turns on the way down. All in all, it had been a great little adventure. I appreciated that we had to earn our turns and also plan carefully our route up and tread lightly. We were rewarded with some fun skiing. If the chair had been open up top, then we wouldn’t have had this adventure.
Then it was another 3.5 hours (more freeway closures) to get to Hakodate, much longer than the 2 hours that Google maps had suggested. It was raining hard as we drove in. Just a word of caution, it cost us more then 6,000 ($60) JPY in tolls, to get there. That was a bit of a shock. We stopped into a weird (but decent) Japanese-American burger joint for a quick bite and then settled into the Hakodate-Onuma Prince Hotel. The first question they asked us at check-in was “have you been in Wuhan, China recently?” Err, nope!
A massive bear has taken over the roof of this building on the way to Sunlaiva resort!
Wild seas on the way to Noribetsu
Different scenery to what we normally see. We were thankful for the diversion.
Mini Disneyland
Sanlaiva resort. Only a handful of people and then all the school kids. They were beginners and weren't riding the lift we were on, so no lift lines.
The double chair we took, freshies on the groomers. Too much bamboo in the trees.
Jeremy in powtown
Lunch was nice. No one in the cafeteria. Katsudon for me and Katsu curry for Jeremy.
Skinning up into the abandoned part of the ski area. In hindsight, it was good that it was closed as we got guaranteed freshies. This is the steep part that was a little suspect. We dug a pit, performed stability tests and hugged the left hand side. The skin track was pretty straight and nasty.
I don't know if that meant I should do the pizza or I shouldn't? Either way, time to practice!
Top of the abandoned lift and the end of our skin.
Time to enjoy the down.
Still a few shrubs sticking out but we didn't hit anything underneath and the skiing was quite nice. The adventure was worth it.
if only this place got more snow and they had that top lift running. Some great open terrain up high and quite steep. Historical data showed that they don't seem to get enough snow for the trees to ever get good enough. Shame.....
- Matt