Tyler launching through some deciduous trees.

We fly into Tokyo still hurting from Woodward and it’s just one more flight. 1hr 40 min later we land in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan. We proceed to the rental car counter and do our best to explain with hand signals that the van we have reserved is going to be too small for our 4 duffels, 4 avalung packs, and 4 oversized ski bags. We end up with a 10 passenger van for 4 of us. Perfect.
We have now spent 2 nights sleeping in it.

Wait? What are we doing in Japan?

Anton Finds a stash, but to be honest, its all a stash on a pow day here.

Well anyone who keeps track of snowfall around the world probably knows that Japan, who usually has incredible snowfall, is having their best winter in decades. They reported 10 meters of snow in December alone. For those of you like me that don’t really have a mental reference point for the metric system, that is almost 33 feet of snow.

How did this trip come about? Anton Sponar and I were looking through the newest issue of the ski journal, and commented how much we would love to go ski in Japan. A quick search unveiled cheap flights. A plan was born, and by plan, I mean we bought tickets and reserved a car. Since then we are flying by the seat of our pants. At this moment I’m sitting in the parking lot of Hirafu at Niseko waiting for the lifts to open to go ski their extensive sidecountry.

We left Denver on a Tuesday night and didn’t arrive here until Tuesday morning. It’s a long way and a days time Change away to get here.

After hopping in the van we decided to head towards Niseko for our first stop. On the way we found some mini golf on the side of the road that involved jumping off of avalanche barriers into soft Japanese pow.

Coming back from Avalanche barrier meat hucking.

That night we drove into Niseko, and quickly discovered that without a reservation, accommodations were going to be hard to find. Thats why we rented a big van. First night many complaints were heard about skis in uncomfortable places, and Calebs oversight of not bringing a mat.

We still get ourselves up the next morning to be on the early chairlift, and head up the mountain. We head directly to the top of the single seater to a quick hike ( about a 3rd of a bowl hike at highlands) and after reaching the top, the possibilities are endless. 3000 ft lines of Sidecountry surround us in all directions. We pick a gully and the skiing is good wind deposited pow to the bottom. Nothing to complain about here. The run out leads us directly to a gondola. Back up again we find some tree skiing and some bowl skiing to entertain us the rest of the day.

Small air with the Ocean in the background.

The skiing doesn't suck here. Tyler sends a cheers to another two weeks in Japanland.

A bit of a break to try and find a hotel is of no luck, we grab some suchi, and we head back to the hill for some night skiing. The wind is blowing about 30 and the ambient temp must be hovering around 0. We last a couple laps of skiing off piste barely lit pow and it’s time to head off to find a place to park our tent for the night.

Here is a quick Gopro video of night skiing:

Time to go skiing again!

Another shot of Ty in the trees.