Japan in March

[DJ2]

Neck Beard, happy to bow to your local knowledge on Hakuba, just tossing out the stats snowjapan has to point out that telling people who are thinking to spend big bucks and fly many hours: ``oh, yeah, snows like mad in march in japan'' is somewhat gilding the lily in comparison to the real powder season of late-december to end-february.
I'm sure you're quite right about the best timing for backcountry touring.

[Mike Pow]

Just finished up a couple of days in Kiroro. Terrain has been better than I expected in Japan. There were a few nice ridges of reasonable pitch.

Trying to decide where to head next. Looks to be a decent amount of snow coming next week.

Heaviest seems to be in kuradoke and asahidake but from looking at pictures of terrain it seems they might be more in alpine terrain? Is the tree skiing decent at these resorts?

How does Kiroro compare terrain wise to some of the other popular places or niseko, rusutsu etc

Good to hear you enjoyed Kiroro. Hands down the best snow in the area this past week.

Asahidake and Kurodake are very different from Kiroro. More lift accessed sidecountry and backcountry than resort.

Just got back from central Hokkaido during a low tide period.

With snow Kamui, Furano and Sahoro offer a very different resort experience from Kiroro. More continual fall line skiing.

[phatty]

I preferred the terrain at Rusutsu to Kiroro, but the snow was better at Kiroro. Want to get to central Hokkaido next year.

[Mike Pow]

Sunday 01 March 2015
Kiroro

Tim





Tuesday 03 March 2015
Niseko Hanazono

Christian





Jason





Adrian





Christian









Thursday 05 March 2015
Kiroro

Adrian









Jason





Christian









Friday 06 March 2015
Kiroro

Jason





Adrian





Christian

[Mike Pow]

Sunday 08 March 2015
Kiroro Backcountry

The sunshine of the previous two days had formed a tricky sun crust on some aspects but there was plenty of knee deep powder on the descent.

[Mike Pow]

Thursday 12 March 2015
Kiroro

[spaulding24]

Damn, looks pretty amazing. Is anyone interested in riding (literally) anywhere April 3-6? Resort or backcountry, Honshu or Hokkaido. I just found out I have off work and am itching to take advantage of it

[Mike Pow]

Friday 13 March 2015
Kiroro

Skied with Otaru local and 24 year Kiroro season pass holder Hiroki today

[Mike Pow]

Saturday 14 March 2015
Kiroro

[Mike Pow]

Kiroro last Thursday

[Mike Pow]

Monday 16 March 2015
Kiroro

[Mike Pow]

Been warm, cold, warm, cold, warm.

Sunny, grey, snowing, sunny.

Thursday 26 March 2015
Kiroro

THE LAST HURRAH?

[Mike Pow]

Saturday 28 March 2015

SPRING TOURING ON THE SHAKOTAN PENINSULA

https://youtu.be/wwQdJMQo5fU


My last Hokkaido ski for the season was a solo tour of Shakotan-dake (1255m) and Yobetsu-dake (1298m) on the Shakotan Peninsula.

Further information and links

Hokkaido Backcountry Club
http://www.tetongravity.com/story/sk...ountry-project

http://www.hokkaidobackcountryclub.c...E-B19F26F953FA




Backcountry Magazine & Cascade Designs
http://www.cascadedesigns.com/therm-...tan-peninsula/


Japanese vid