International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) Tohoku (Japan) 2019 Trip Report

[Mattadvproject]

G'day Pugs,
Time for the overseas ski season to finally start for me. It's been a while coming this year.... On Tuesday, I'm heading to the Tohoku region of Japan. For those that don't know, this is the far northern tip of the main island of Honshu. This will be my first time skiing outside of Hokkaido and I'm very excited to be skiing somewhere new.

Tohoku only recently came onto my radar. I always wanted to head to the main island as there is so much good skiing to be found (I still have a lot more skiing to do in Hokkaido as well) and I always thought I'd be starting in the Hakuba area. That's before Tohoku came onto my radar. I felt that Hakuba is pretty much on the map already and I like to try and explore more under the radar areas. Tohoku is a little bit more remote and less-Westernized, so it ticks a lot of the boxes I am looking for. This summer I did the research and put the trip together. Now off we go!

I'm flying direct to Narita from Denver on Tuesday. Flights weren't cheap as I was booking a little late, but the convenience of a direct flight to Tokyo from Denver can't be understated. This is going to be one of my easier long-haul trips. I arrive on Wednesday around 4:30pm and am planning on sending my big bags ahead of me via courier service (JAL ABC baggage forwarding service, next day to Aomori for $22 for a ski bag) as soon as I arrive and buying an unlimited sim-card for the WiFi ($50 for 2 weeks), so then I'll just be left with a couple of small bags that I can have a spare change of clothing and toiletries in. It will be good to get rid of the ski bags when I'm in Tokyo and then heading to Aomori. As soon as the bags and SIM card are taken care of, then we can jump on the train into the city to the Tokyo Station area. I'm traveling with my good friend Gordon, from Denver and then we are meeting with Gary in Tokyo (who some Pugs will already know).

I have a hotel room staying about 12 minutes walk away from the station. Without big bags, that should be very easy. That was about $100 for 1 night on the 30th Jan, not bad as most hotels in the Tokyo Station area are a lot more expensive. Then the next day, I'm heading back to the station to hit the bullet train service up to Aomori. I bought a JR East (Tohoku) rail pass ($165) to save a little money on the train fare to Aomori. Bullet trains aren't cheap as it turns out... I'm very excited to be riding one for the first time. I like train rides in general so this should be quite fun. You have to have a reserved seat for the Hyabusa, so the challenge will be to make a reservation before we are ticketed for the train. Hopefully the trains to Aomori aren't fully-booked so we can make a reservation same day.....

Then I have 1 night in Aomori before the main crew arrives on the 1st Feb. We have 13 days to go and explore. We'll have 3 nights in Aomori, 3 nights at the Aomori Springs Hotel and then 5 nights in Shizukuishi, further south in Iwate prefecture, plus 1 more night back in Aomori. I'll be taking the train back to Tokyo on the 13th and then flying straight back to Denver that evening. We'll be skiing and exploring everyday. We have a lot of under the radar resorts to explore, I'm excited to see what we find. I'll be documenting as much of that as possible here......

- Matt

 

[karlo]

Cool. I have friends in Singapore that love Aomori and go every year. Never been able to match up our schedules though.

 

[Mattadvproject]

And so it begins..... heading to the airport. Let the journey and the adventures begin!

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Made it safely to Tokyo!
All is well. Caught up with some sleep and am no longer a zombie..... Everything went well yesterday with the flight from Denver. No issues checking in or with security. They were pretty busy at TSA check-in but got through relatively quickly. No problems getting my JetForce pack through security, not even a question. Met my friend Gordon up in the United lounge and then off we went.

The flight was fine. Didn't have anyone in the middle seat in Premium Economy so that helped. Got about 3.5 hours sleep and watched about 4 movies. Arrived on schedule around 4:30pm at Narita. Bags arrived and not even a question through immigration. Good times. Changed $500 USD into JPY, then had to organize shipping of bags to Aomori. We found JAL ABC easily, but they refused to send the ski bags, they were too big. I was pretty disappointed by that, I just don't think they could be bothered. There's nothing on the website that I saw that says there is a size limit. Mine was definitely under the weight limit at least. Shipped with a different company and they said 1 day, but could be 2. Hopefully the bags are there when we arrive today.

Used another company and it was expensive, about 8,000 JPY. I did send both of my big bags though, so just my JetForce and my computer bag. Then I bought my 15 day unlimited SIM card for WiFi and that was about $50 from JAL. Set that up and it works fine. It was a little disconcerting as they wouldn't let me look at it first, but it was the right size. My AT+T SIM had to come out but now I have solid 4G WiFi. Then we purchased our Narita Express train tickets (2,800 JPY) and headed down to the subway. That is an express service, non-stop to Tokyo Station that takes an hour exactly. The trains are brand new, clean and have free WiFi. There is storage compartments above the seats and then storage between the carriages, but it was nice not to have ski bags. Will have them on the way back unfortunately.....

Arriving at Tokyo Station was pretty full-on. I'd not been there before but it was a massive place and very disorientating. I'm glad I didn't have ski bags then..... We didn't know which exit we needed so just headed for the closest door, inhindsight we got out at the wrong door, should have gone the opposite way. Then (thankfully we had the WiFi and GPS on), followed the maps to walk to the hotel. I was a bit of a zombie by this stage, so when we got to the hotel (Tokyo Intergate, about $95 USD), it was about 8pm. After checking in and heading to the rooms, it was 8:30pm, so we just grabbed some snacks from the Family Mart downstairs and that was all we needed for dinner. I fell asleep on the bed and then managed 8 hours plus of sleep.

Now it's off to the station to meet Gary at 10am and catch the earliest Hyabusa into Aomori. Can't wait to ride the bullet train!


Tokyo Station at night....

- Matt

 

[karlo]

bought a JR East (Tohoku) rail pass ($165)

Then we purchased our Narita Express train tickets (2,800 JPY)

Note that the JR East Pass is valid for Narita Express.

We found JAL ABC easily, but they refused to send the ski bags,

Check out Yamato, who’s logo is black cat. They for sure take skis. Last year, they transported my skis from Shiga Kogen, back to Hakuba. They even provided a plastic bag in which to place the skis.

http://www.japanpowder.com/Travelinfo/blackcatluggage

 

[Mattadvproject]

Note that the JR East Pass is valid for Narita Express.



Check out Yamato, who’s logo is black cat. They for sure take skis. Last year, they transported my skis from Shiga Kogen, back to Hakuba. They even provided a plastic bag in which to place the skis.

http://www.japanpowder.com/Travelinfo/blackcatluggage

Cheers Karlo,
Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, we couldn't activate our JR East Rail passes until the 31st as they only last for 14 days and we have to travel back on the Hyabusa on the 13th Feb. So we couldn't use them until the 31st and therefore couldn't use the pass on the 30th for travel on the JR Narita Express, otherwise we would have definitely have used the passes. There are several different trains and buses that you can take from Narita to the Tokyo Station that would be cheaper as well, we just took the most convenient. In hindsight, we should have definitely used Blackcat and not Sagawa Express. Definitely have that figured out for next time! Thanks Karlo.
- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

30th Jan – Arriving in Aomori

I really enjoyed the train ride to Aomori on the Hyabusa. There was something pretty cool about the idea of traveling 200mph plus on a train. It was so smooth and I enjoyed watching the scenery as we flew on past. We made it to Shin-Aomori Station at 1:30pm and then changed trains for the local line to Aomori Station which would get us closer to our hotel.

It only took about 10 minutes and no other stops, until we were there. Easy stuff. It was snowing pretty decently when we arrived and then it was about a 15-minute walk (I didn’t get us lost this time!) until we made it to the Art Color Hotel Aomori. It’s in a great location, right on the main drag strip in the city. There are many restaurants and interesting things to see. The rooms are pretty tiny, but we all at least have our own rooms.

The ladies at check-in were very nice, but didn’t speak too much English. No worries, time to bust out the new Langogo 2-way translator device. It worked flawlessly and we were able to get everything squared away. Our bags had arrived from the courier service as well, plus a package from Grant (he shipped some 2-way Japanese radios to me from Hokkaido).

We got to our rooms and then settled in for an hour or so. I did a little bit of research and found some things we could go look at so around 4pm, we went on a walk about. Our first stop was the Nebuta museum at Wa Rasse, this is where they have recreations of the amazing floats that they parade at the Nebuta Matsuri festival in August each year.

Oh, my goodness, what an amazing place. The building itself is a piece of artwork in itself, but once you get inside and see these amazing floats, all lit up, then it’s breathtaking. This is a must-see in Aomori, in my opinion and well worth the 600JPY to go see it. It was close to the train station so easy for us to get to. We enjoyed that for about 40 minutes and then went outside to try and go see the old ferry boat (previously used to take passengers across to Hokkaido) that is moored up just outside the museum. Unfortunately, it was just passed 5pm and it was closed, so we’ll have to try and shoot for that one another time (it’s free).

Then we went into the A-Factory which is a fancy warehouse where they make cider and sell Aomori produce. I saw some local beers for sale but the brewery was more than an hour’s drive away. Not sure if we can hit that one up. We had passed a 6-story building with all different restaurants in it, so we took the elevator up to the 6th floor to try and seafood BBQ place. We were the only people in there and no one spoke any English (a good sign that we are somewhere very authentic, which I like) and the Langogo came into its own again.

We started with some fresh scallops, squid rings and mackerel skewers and we BBQ’s those up on our little grill. Then we all had our own items. I had the edamame and a couple of meat wrapped rice balls and Gordon had some big prawns and Gary had meat-wrapped vegetables. The food was pretty good but the ambience was a little lacking.

I had seen a karaoke joint on the third floor and I said that we had to go try it out. We’ve always talked about going to karaoke in the past and never gotten around to it (I did my first in Otaru last year and loved it), so I pulled rank and said we were going to try it. Here you hire your own private room and can also have an all you can drink package (alcohol and non-alcohol), it’s not super cheap but it’s really fun. We signed up for an hour but were having so much fun that we stayed for another hours (2 hours in total seems about right, it definitely takes it toll on your voice).

We rocked that joint till about 9pm and then headed back to the hotel. Jeremy arrived just after 9pm and then I got my head down for a solid night’s sleep.












































- Matt

 

[Jim McDonald]

That ferry across the Tsugaru Straits could be a rough ride! Worth it, though, to visit Aomori & Hakodate.

 

[Mattadvproject]

2nd Feb – 1st Day Skiing

We had our two groups together and it was time for our first day together. The weather was not looking the best as it was super windy. There was a small resort about an hour away from Aomori that had a forecast for lower winds and a little bit of snow accumulation (about 8cm’s) so we decided to go there. Hakkoda, our first choice, was shut down.

On doing some research, we found that this new resort only had 3 chairs, was pretty steep and was more sheltered. We also saw an old abandoned part of the ski area with old ski runs still visible. This sounded right up our alley. So, we decided to roll the dice and give it a go.

The driving was pretty tricky as there was a massive headwind and the van was getting blown around a lot, plus there was a lot of new snow on the road. Finally, after close to an hour on the express too road we came to a small town and we could see the ski area. It did look steep and there was a reasonable amount of fresh snow around.

There weren’t many other cars in the car park (about 30) by the time we got there around 8:45am. The lifts were open at 8:30am so it was time to get a wriggle on. We headed straight to the ticket office and purchased full day passes for 2,900 JPY or about $26! Then we headed up the first chair which didn’t go very high, so we jumped straight on the next double chair. This one went on for a lot longer and we could see a nice big steep open face above us.

That would be our first run as there was only a couple of tracks on it. I skied right under the chair and it was blown-in and deep. I scored a couple of faceshots. Then we re-grouped back at the bottom and headed back for more. This time we skied another run but further to the skier’s right and I hugged the edge of the run. It was really fun and I enjoyed some high-speed powder turns.

Then we took another chair even higher to go and ski an open wooded face that looked like it had good snow in it. It was deep and really nice. Then we saw another face at the top of the second chair that we had to hit up. The snow was a little wind-affected in places but still really fun. It was definitely exceeding my expectations. We did about 8 runs in those two main areas before we decided it was lunchtime.

We headed to the top of the 3rd chair and there was a massive old hotel at the top. We couldn’t tell if it was even open, but we went inside and sure enough they had a restaurant inside for lunch. It was a little too quiet and I was wondering if we were in a scene out of The Shining, but Jack Nicholson didn’t appear at the door with an axe so all was good.

After lunch we decided we’d go for a skin to the top of the adjacent peak where we had seen a couple of old abandoned lifts. We went and got all out avi gear and headed back up. The skin was pretty easy, about 40 minutes up a golf course (yep, on top of the ski area) and following some power lines on an existing, low-angle track. It was a nice easy line. Finally, as we neared the top, we could see an old double chair and then a big gondola or cable car station.

We headed over for a closer look at the buildings. Nothing was open but we could see inside and could see s large room with some tables and chairs. We used a sheltered area to de-skin and get ready for the run down. We skied an old run next to the gondola line and it had a few saplings on it. It became narrower as it turned into a cat track. We enjoyed fresh snow for quite a while. Finally, we got the bottom and then we had a big traverse and then skate back to the ski area. All in all, it took us about 2.5 hours and was well-worth it.

Then we had the 1-hour drive home with a stop at Lawsons for some road snacks. Then we had some sushi in the town before heading back for an early night. Karaoke would have to wait for 1 more night….










































- Matt

 

[Eleeski]

Very interested in your report. Plans for next year?!

Was the resort the Owani hot springs resort? That looks closer than 1 hour or were the roads slow? How did you get the van, was it a local rental or did it come with a driver?

Eric

 

[Jim McDonald]

Yep, that's Owani. But I'm confused about descriptions of lifts/runs (haven't been there since the '80s tho so much likely changed).

 

[Eleeski]

One more visit to Japan won't be enough!

 

[Mattadvproject]

Very interested in your report. Plans for next year?!

Was the resort the Owani hot springs resort? That looks closer than 1 hour or were the roads slow? How did you get the van, was it a local rental or did it come with a driver?

Eric

Eric,
Thanks for the questions.... I can neither confirm nor deny, that that was the resort you mentioned..... It was a slow drive due to the weather and the roads. The van was a rental and it came with a driver (me!).

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Yep, that's Owani. But I'm confused about descriptions of lifts/runs (haven't been there since the '80s tho so much likely changed).

G'day Jim,
I'm sure a lot has changed since the 80's. They only have 3 double chairs now and the gondola and the other chair (assume it was a double?) are no longer working and the whole lookers left side of the resort is now abandoned.... makes for easy touring though now.

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

3rd Feb – Hakkoda

We’d been hoping to head to Hakkoda since we’d gotten to Aomori prefecture and the weather had shut us down. This was our only chance to make it up there with a quick break in the window. Wind speeds had dropped and the sun was due to make an appearance in the morning. It would take about 40 minutes to get to the mountain which was due to open at 9am.

We left around 8am and made good time. The drive up was really scenic and we saw some of the biggest snow embankments I’d ever seen at the side of the road as we climbed up higher. We drove past the small ski area of Moya Hills on the way and climbed into the mountains.

Then we saw the cable car and the parking lot with about 15 cars in it. We jumped out and rapidly put on our gear as the first tram went up. For those that haven’t heard about Hakkoda, it’s a popular lift-accessible touring area. They have a 100-person able car which takes you to the top of one of 6 peaks. From there, there are a couple of marked runs (non-groomed but well-skied) but the rest is off-piste. There is a small ski area next to the base of the ropeway with a couple of chairlifts.

You can pay for a single pass (about $10) or go for a 5-pack. We ended up buying a couple of single run tickets. There was a large queue (a tour bus turned up with a large group of sightseers) and it took us about an hour to get onto the tram. The tram heads up to one of the peaks and you pass over mostly tree skiing areas. Towards the top you get to see the “snow monster”, trees that are inundated with snow and rime. We watched groups of 20+ tourers heading out into the backcountry.

We took our time and checked out the view and took photos of the group in front of the snow monsters. Then it was time to start skiing. We took a run down through the “direct course” at the start before heading out into the off-piste, through the snow monsters. It was slow going as they were tight together and had plenty of hidden dips and holes (plus tree wells). It was hard to find a line. Eventually the monsters gave way to birch trees and the skiing was more open. The pitch did decrease though so it was very easy going. There was a thin wind-crust that made skiing a little harder.

It took an hour or so to get down. We headed to the ski area and popped out above one of the chairs. Then we had to cut right a little to get to the tram. Thankfully the queue was a lot smaller second time around and we only waited about 30 minutes. We headed back up and skied a similar line to our first time, staying more to the skier’s left to avoid the snow monsters. We made it down in about half the time on this run knowing better where we were going. We stopped and had a late lunch (curry for about 850 JPY) and then headed back early to Aomori.

Overall it was a cool experience heading to Hakkoda and I’m glad we did it. The scope of the place is pretty impressive and there are a lot of good-looking lines to be skied. I didn’t see anything too steep and I think you can find lines to ski regardless of the avi conditions. You definitely need to know where you are going to get the most out of the place and hiring a local guide would be the way to go. I’d go with a private group to minimize group size. My biggest concern is over the weather and how changeable it can be up there. I don’t know if it’s somewhere I would take groups therefore. I think there are better, more reliable options that have easier access.

That afternoon we took the group to the Nebuta museum and then we tried some local ciders at the A-Factory. Then we had a really nice dinner (Gyoza and fried noodles and egg on top) before heading to the karaoke place again. That turned into a 3-hour session and was a lot of fun. Most of the group had slightly sore throats and heads the next day…..
































- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

4th Feb – Exploring a New Resort

It was time to leave Aomori and head south. We had 3 nights in another new resort. We had looked at exploring Hirosaki and visiting the castle there, but it is closed over the winter, so we headed to the next resort instead.

It was a relatively easy drive and we got to the hotel around 11:30am. We couldn’t check in till 3pm so we bought a 5-hour ticket and hit the slopes. We headed up a hooded quad chair and then over to a double chair. It was snowing and pretty bad visibility, so we headed into the trees. We were the only people over in that area. We found 2 groomed runs and then 3 stands of trees. They were steep, wide-open trees that weren’t roped. We did several runs in each area hitting fresh snow every time. It wasn’t quite deep enough to hide all the firm snow underneath but it was fun skiing.

Then we headed over to the other side of the mountain (the gondola was closed due to the winds) and we rode another hooded quad chair and found another double chair. This time the double chair was not running and was buried in snow. There runs were a lot mellower here but the snow was soft and no one was skiing it. We enjoyed more fresh turns.

By this stage it was time to start heading back to the hotel as it was getting late. We had a nice dinner (buffet dinner included) and then had a few beers. The forecast was showing clearing skies for the next day so we were keen to explore more.

5th Feb – Further Adventures and Skinning into the Backcountry

It had snowed about 3 inches during the night and the sun was poking out so we were keen to get out after it. We headed over to the gondola which was open (at 8:30am) with the much quieter winds. It was about 8:45am by the time we got there. Only 2 people were ahead of us. No one is in a hurry here! I like that. We had untouched powder at the side of the run next to the gondola and then we ducked into the trees again. They were open but the aspect was a little more south-facing and the snow was crusty and very grabby. Not so much fun. We got out as quickly as we could and then headed to the double chair that we had enjoyed the day before.

Now the sun was out and visibility was great. We did about 4 runs on the double chair, skiing mostly in the trees. In the protected places, the snow was soft and you couldn’t feel that hard layer below. Not epic, but still great. We were warmed up by now so we decided it was time to put our touring plan into action. We had to go back to the locker room to grab our packs and touring gear. We headed back to the double chair to start our climb.

There had been another group go up ahead of us, so there was a skin track in already. It was a pretty steep track and was hard going with the hard snow below. Grip was a struggle at times. We made a sharp switchback early in the climb as the original track seemed to be moving too far away from the direction we wanted to go. We regained the original ridge we wanted to be on and up we went. At times we had to go straight up and it was steep going, other times we were able to put in mellow turns. It had it all.

We didn’t have a set plan on what line we wanted to ski. The original ridgeline to the lookers right of the chair was not looking so good, I thought it was going to be very wind-affected, so when the large open face higher up started to come into range, that was looking like a better option. It would be good to dig a pit though and perform some stability tests to learn more about the slope. The group was up for that. To our surprise, the other group’s track re-appeared out of the trees and we joined back onto it. I’m not sure why they went the way they did? Further up the track needlessly came off the ridge and the trees and cut across the steepest part of the slop right under a roll-over, then higher up it went directly below a cornice. Hmmm, not the safest option so we made our own track again to avoid all of that.

We could see their group higher up the ridge, it was a big group of almost 10 skiers. Some of them were bootpacking. They were aiming for the false summit. To me it looked pretty wind-affected up there and not something we felt we needed to do, so we made plans to drop in earlier, where it was a lot more sheltered. We weren’t going to lose too much quality vertical with this option. We found a nice open area, not too steep, on top of the line we were looking at skiing, to dig a pit.

The snowpack was more than 3m deep and we decided to dig down to 150cm’s. We went 150cm’s wide. With 5 of us working, it took about 30 minutes to dig a decent pit. I identified some of the layers in the side (observation) wall and found pretty hard layers, most being 1 finger stiffness. There were 3 ice crusts in there. The area of concern was just below the 3rd crust, a 4 finger layer about 5cm’s deep, 60cm’s down from the surface. Would this layer cause any failures in our testing?

We did a shovel shear layer, finding a few reactive layers but none of them producing any aggressive, clean shears. Then we did 2 Compression Tests with mixed results; the first producing failure on 22 taps, again without a clean shear. The second test produced no result. Then we did an ECT (Extended Column Test) and that also produced no result. We filled in the pit in about 5 minutes and decided on our line. That would be right underneath. I would set the furthest left track and the guys would fill in to the right. We had our radios and I could call back and give them directions.

The snow was really nice, pretty soft with about 6 inches of fresh. There were some frozen tree bombs (lumps of hard snow that had fallen off the trees, you don’t want to ski over them at high speed), so I told the guys to keep it mellow. It was awesome skiing, with a lot of quality turns through wide-open trees with no brush or vines to get tangled up in. It was quite steep, definitely avi terrain in the wrong conditions so a serious proposition. We had 3 really long pitches to enjoy; hooting and hollering was had!

We funneled into the gully and from our reconnaissance the day before, I felt confident it would go through and around to the resort. The bottom was completely filled in (pretty sure this is an active avi path earlier in the season) and it was quick and easy going which can sometimes be a rarity in trying to get out of drainages in Japan. We made it effortlessly back to the resort and the groomed run. We were shocked at how easy going it all was.

I’d have to say this was probably the best lift-accessible backcountry line I have skied in Japan so far. It beats anything I have skied in Hokkaido for terrain and accessibility and I much preferred it to Hakkoda. It was such a large area too with many, many more lines to be had. We had only just scratched the surface. Time to head back for more tomorrow!
















































- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Some raw unedited footage from the very start of the run. This is just a small section of the run. The light was great and hopefully you can get a good feel for the terrain. It was awesome, probably the best trees (in terms of spacing and pitch) that I have skied in Japan so far..... time for more tomorrow. Sometime I'll edit together the whole run.

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

6th Feb – backcountry skiing in the same mystery resort!

There was about 5 inches of fresh snow on the ground but the temps were warming up fast. By the time we got outside at 8:45am it was already heavy. We headed to the gondola to look at skinning up from this side of the mountain, but the weather started to close in on us. Without line of sight, I was reluctant to go too far in an unfamiliar area.

We skinned up for about 30 minutes and when we started to get out of the major trees, the visibility was not good at all. It was a flatter section but I decided to call it there so we could at least enjoy the skiing in the open trees we had just skinned through. Sure enough the snow was really nice. It was starting to get deep but it was shearing off the layer below pretty cleanly. Anything that had any steepness we’d have to be careful on.

We picked our way through the trees, being cautious on the steeper faces and skiing one at a time, throwing in some ski cuts wherever I had the chance. We ended up being ok but I’m glad we made the decision to be cautious and also turn back when we decided to. That was a good call. We headed down for a very early lunch (11am) and then decided to head back to the double chair to skin to the area we had skied the day before.

This time we would head left from the lift and straight into the woods. The patrol don’t seem to give you a hard time if you are touring and are carrying gear. They left us alone. This time we found a much easier route compared to the day before. We made our own track and it was a lot easier going. We followed a snow hare’s tracks and unfortunately came to a blood trail. No more bunny…. We saw some kind of animal on the far side of the ridge we were heading to but couldn’t make out what it was. It looked like it was following a hare, it was definitely in hunting mode. It looked like a Lynx but according to a search we did online, there are no big cats in northern Japan. Not sure what it was then….

We made it up in good time and it took about 1.5 hours. We were heading to a ridgeline in the middle of the face and we still had to be careful to avoid some steeper spots given the shear quality of the new snow. I did find a short steeper face to do some ski cuts on and didn’t get any releases, so that was an encouraging sign. We made it into the trees and they were wide-open and untouched. The spacing was huge. You could do GS turns in there and really mix it up.

We broke it up into 2 parts and the first section was about a minute of non-stop skiing. There was a lot of hooting and hollering on the way down, we were all having a ton of fun. It wasn’t super deep snow, but it was a soft and consistent ride down. We liked it a lot. We had a couple of nice long sections before hitting the drainage at the bottom and enjoying the easy out back into the resort. This was the run of the trip so far. Tomorrow we head to our next resort about 2.5 hours further south. There are a lot of resorts we can hit in this zone. I’m really optimistic about the skiing in this zone, I just wish there was some epic pow in the forecast….





















- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

A short clip from that run. Love the spacing on these trees.....

 

[Mattadvproject]

7th Feb – Heading further South

It was time to move on to our next zone, about 2.5 hours further south. We have 5 nights in this zone and my hope is that we find bigger mountains, more snow and less people. Fingers crossed! We drove for about 2 hours before we found our next resort. This was a big resort with 16 lifts and a lot of trails. They also have an open policy towards tree skiing with several new gladed and permitted tree run zones. You had to sign a waiver and obtain an arm band before you could enter these areas. No big deal though….

We found a fun ski area, with a ton of great tree skiing. The snow in the marked tree zones was pretty well-skied already and we found much better snow in the unmarked trees between the runs. No one was riding those and the snow was considerably deeper and was all untracked. The runs at the top of the mountain were a little steeper and we found a few abandoned lift lines that had fun turns in them. It’s amazing how many abandoned ski runs and lift lines we are finding in Tohoku. It seems like this whole area has been in major decline. It’s a shame but maybe an increase in Western visitors could bring in some needed money into this area?

We skied fresh powder all day as it was snowing hard. We saw a handful of other Westerners and most of them weren’t riding what we were after. It was so easy ducking into the trees and finding fresh lines, plus the gullies were few and easy to navigate. Patrol were mellow and didn’t seem to be concerned about what we were skiing. A big thumbs up for this resort! We were done around 3:30pm and then it was about an hour to get to the next hotel, although we had a little detour to find a gas station. We made it to the hotel in the dark and had a nice meal at a little restaurant just next to the hotel.















- Matt