TR: Hokkaido Japan in April

[doughboyshredder]

Another cross post. No action shots, as I was riding alone.

Life really is an awesome adventure. It seems to get even better as I allow it to happen. With an open mind I accepted a service call in Hokkaido Japan. Tom Maintenance Company had installed a handful of gate operators at the Northern Hokkaido Horse Park, and they were not functioning properly.




I flew from SeaTac to Tokyo Narita Airport. At about 10 ½ hours the flight actually didn’t seem that bad. Arrival in Tokyo was a breeze. Everything was very organized and clean. All though most everything was in Japanese it was pretty easy to understand what was going on. I liked that luggage pick up was done in a secure area, so you don’t have to worry about your bags being stolen.

I was flying out of Tokyo Haneda Airport the next morning to Hokkaido. My client had reserved a room for me at the Hotel inside of the Airport. All I had to do was make it from Narita to Haneda. I withdrew a bunch of Yen from the ATM and purchased a bus ticket to Haneda.

I had to wait over an hour for the Bus and while I was waiting the police quizzed me and took a copy of my passport etc… They are not used to seeing people sitting down on the sidewalk. Japan is such an orderly society, that I stuck out like a beacon.

The hotel was actually in the terminal. This was great since my plane left at 7 the next morning. The room was small but very comfortable and quite clean.

I had a window seat on the flight to Hokkaido. Surprisingly JAL uses a 747-600 for this run. This plane was huge. It was a double decker, and there were only about 100 people on board. The cloud cover didn’t break until we were towards the northern part of the island of Honshu. The mountains and beaches were spectacular.

When I got off of the airplane my contacts were waiting for me with a sign with my name on it. Cool.

I about died laughing when I saw Tom’s car. He had American flags wrapped around the front headrests and confederate flags wrapped around the back headrests. I wondered if he had any idea what the confederate flag actually symbolized.

The translator showed up after an hour or so of pure comedy. Tom and his group spoke no English. I of course don’t speak any Japanese. After repairing a couple of the gates at the Horse Park we went for lunch at the Northern Horse Park restaurant. I had one of the best steaks I have had. It was almost raw, but just delicious.

After lunch I fixed the other gate problems and was off to Sapporo. I stayed at a Hotel in downtown Sapporo. I was too exhausted from the travel and work to really enjoy Sapporo much. My clients took me to dinner at a very nice traditional Japanese restaurant. I was of course the only white person there and was fully checked out by all.



I am not a big seafood lover and have never really enjoyed sushi very much. I was done for. It is still hard for me to believe that I actually ate the food that I did. I now know that I could do Fear Factor. I know I could handle the food challenge now. I had raw squid intestines, which I swear were covered in coagulated blood. The texture was almost unbearable. The salmon roe roll was actually not that bad, although I still almost vomited. I had tried a single egg and it was OK. Then I was told to eat the whole roll in one bite. I shrugged and threw it in my mouth. 75 salmon eggs exploding in to the fresh seaweed wrap was almost too much. That made eating the fish head with eyeballs still attached seem not quite so bad. The sea urchin was just horrible though. Luckily we also had some pot stickers so I was able to eat something without cringing. The spider crab was really good as well. Getting to the meat was an unwelcome and somewhat painful challenge though. At one point I was out of water and on the verge of vomiting so I had to take a swig of beer. Sapporo is delicious, but I stuck with my water.

We had a great time at dinner. Luckily Jungko spoke some English so we were able to communicate some. On the walk back to the Hotel there was a light snow falling and I was getting excited about getting some snowboarding in.

The next morning I had a business meeting in Sapporo before I was able to head out to Niseko. After the meeting Jungko took me to the train station and helped me purchase the correct tickets and wrote an itinerary for me in English. After she left I felt more alone than I ever have. There were a couple thousand people at the train station and I was the only white person there. Nobody spoke English and nothing was written in English. Thankfully I had the itinerary that Jungko had written for me and I was able to find the correct train and get out of Sapporo.




The trains in Japan are incredible. They are very efficient and well organized. It took a little over an hour to make it to Otaru where I switched trains for the run to Niseko. It was snowing somewhat heavily in Otaru and I was really starting to get excited. The trip from Otaru to Niseko was absolutely beautiful. Snow covered hills with streams running alongside the train track. It looked really similar to the mountains in North Carolina, just with a lot more snow.





I got off of the train in Niseko and walked in to what seemed like a ghost town. There was noone around and I had no idea where to go. I went back in to the train station and asked how to get to a Hotel. Of course no one spoke English and so it was a bit of a chore. Luckily the attendant contacted a pension style hotel (bed and breakfast) owner that spoke English. His name was Watabe and he ran the Hotel Kiitos. They had no guests and he told me that Niseko was empty, now that winter season was over.





My room was comfortable and very reminiscent of a winter cabin. I felt very lucky that I hadn’t taken a bus to the resort area. Watabe and his wife were amazing people. They cooked breakfast each day and it was always delicious. The first day was a Japanese style breakfast. Squid and noodles. Good but, I was relieved when they cooked bacon and eggs the next two mornings. I had dinner there one night, and truly enjoyed the home cooked Japanese meal.

Hotel Kiitos is about a ten minute drive from the ski areas. Watabe drove me to Niseko Higashiyama in the morning and showed me where to get my ticket and where the Gondola loaded.


Niseko Higashiyama is the centrally located area at Niseko. Annupuri is to the left and Hirafu is to the right. All three areas are on the same lift ticket, which is actually only about 40 dollars. You pay a 10 dollar deposit for the actual ticket which is a RFID card. The system is similar to Bachelors system. The main difference is the readers actually have a reasonable read range and you keep the ticket in your pocket. You slide up to the reader and the bar rotates to let you in. This is a very efficient system and worked flawlessly all day.

The ride up the Gondola is slightly akin to torture. Directly visible from the gondola is some incredible terrain. There are so many steep treed lines that it is mouthwatering. Luckily the future holds promise. Higashiyama is now owned by CitiGroup. There are many improvements in the works including opening this previously closed terrain as a special riding area. If this happens Niseko will no longer be classified as flat. Well, at least not as flat.







It had snowed 1-2cm a day for the last 4 days and with nobody on the hill my hopes were high for some decent snow. As the gondola came towards the platform I looked up and saw a snowboarder laying down perfect arcing turns through smooth creamy snow off the top. Stoked.

I took the short traverse over to the single chair to the top. I saw a few people hiking towards the summit. Unfortunately I never saw them or anybody else really for the rest of the day.

The single chair was a bit on the frightening side. The platform was not made from someone my size. My ass was hanging off both sides and the back rest barely came up to the bottom of my back. Any wind and this thing would be downright deadly. I guess that is why it is closed regularly.







The views from the top are stunning. Mt. Yotei is a stunning volcano that juts right up out of the valley floor. The valley floor is only a few hundred feet above sea level. Mt Annupuri is a bit over 3 and Yotei is over 5. It really is a stunning mountain. All of the local Japanese refer to it as Huji. Then they laugh and say “Hokkaido’s Fuji”.

[doughboyshredder]

I dropped in and cranked out some high speed turns through an inch or so of creamy goodness on top of some barely carveable crust underneath. I used the Annupuri quad to access the top a few more times, and then I made my way down to the Annupuri gondola. On the way up I spotted some fun looking terrain under the gondola with what looked like some pretty good snow. I poked around off the top of the gondola and found an access gate through a ropeline. I kind of got confused here because according to the trail map there was no access gate there and it was really close to an off limits area. I followed some older filled in tracks and was stoked to find about 3 inches of cream on top of a carveable smooth base. The trees were perfectly spaced and the run out was a banked slalom type course and then a single track back to the gondola. I worked this area a few times and then headed over to Hirafu.

The snow conditions are very different depending on where you go at Niseko. The area is so spread out that there are many different aspects, elevations, and sun exposures. The snow at the main runs at Hirafu was a bit more set up and I worked the groomers down to the lodge. I never could find the wax tunnel so I went in to the ski shop and got a top notch hot wax job. I walked around Hirafu while they were finishing waxing a pair of skis. Hirafu is basically a bunch of Hotels and Pensions. I stopped at a local backcountry ski shop and tried to get some info on Annupuri bowl. As I had surmised there was a high possibility of full climax avalanches in the backcountry during spring. If you know the right routes it is all good, if not you could die. I don’t want to die so the backcountry is off limits. The BC looks sick though. Annupuri bowl is accessible right off the top of the Annupuri chair. Probably some areas were 35 degrees, but it averaged about 30. I spotted a few tracks later in the day and it looked good.

Back at the ski shop I had a fun conversation with the ski techs. They spoke some English and were very willing to try and converse. They also did a great job on my board for about 20 dollars.

I rode the Hirafu Gondola up and spotted a short boot pack to a ridge to the right of the unloading area. It was less than a two minute walk. At the top there was a sign saying that you were leaving the ski area boundary and there was no patrol past that point. I looked on the map and it seemed that there was a blue run cutting across the bottom of the hill. There was a Japanese girl walking up and I asked her where to go. She confirmed that there was a track cut across the bottom. I dropped in to 6 inches of perfect creamy goodness on top of a carveable base. Everything was so smooth that even with the two inches of snow down lower it was still incredible. Again the trees were spaced perfectly and there were mellow banks all over.










I then grabbed a hamburger for lunch. Actually it was a Salisbury steak with Japanese sauce and rice. No bread. That is why there are no fat Japanese people. They don’t hardly eat any bread.

I decided to ride the groomer down to the bottom of Higashiyama so that I could check out the terrain possibilities there. The snow was horrible. With better conditions it would probably be a pretty fun area. About 2600 vertical with some decently sloped terrain, but mostly pretty flat. I took the gondola back up and went back over to the Annupuri area where I hit that access gate a few more times.

For dinner I went to the 7 eleven. I loaded up on fruity yogurt drinks and strawberry cake. They even had fake Pringles and Snicker bars. Mostly it was a bunch of stuff that I had no idea what it was.


The next morning Watabe drove me to Rusutsu.



It took about 30 minutes to get to Rusutsu. I arrived about half an hour before they started to run the gondola. Rusutsu is a full on resort. They even have a roller coaster park that runs during the summer. The tracks looped and twisted and looked super fun. The inside courtyard looked like a cheesy version of Disneyland.



The west mountain of Rusutsu is short and flat. I took the gondola over to the East area. The gondola goes across the road and over a large meadow to get to the other base area.





The other gondola was not running yet so I took the quad up. The groomed run off the quad was so flat that I straightlined the whole thing and didn’t have enough speed for a slash on a hillside by the run.

I hopped on the Gondola and was stoked to spot some decent looking terrain in the trees under the Gondola. The top section was actually 30 plus degrees and was holding a few inches of creamy on top of carveable corn. It flattened out quick into kind of a fun single track through a thin forest. I rode this repeatedly till I had pretty much tracked it out.





Off of the top is the steepest run on any trail map in the Niseko / Rusutsu area. Supposedly 40 degrees. I believe it as it was completely mogulled out. I hadn’t actually ridden moguls in a long time and it was pretty freaking tough. Each side of the run had signs in Japanese which I assumed meant no go. Visible across the gully was some incredible looking terrain off of the other Gondola. Unfortunately the Isola Mountain lifts were not running yet.

I went back to the hotel for lunch and ordered a chicken sandwich at the American style deli. I made my way back over to the East Mt and found out that the Isola Mt quads were running, just not the gondola. I found some smooth deap corn in the trees under the Isola quad. This area would be so sick on a powder day. Tons of mini gullies in the trees all funneling down in to a flat single track runout.

The view at the top of Isola Mt is absolutely amazing. You can see Mt Yotei to one side and the Pacific Ocean to the other. Directly behind the large sign at the top is a rope line and a red sign in Japanese. This was the entrance to the best terrain and conditions of the trip. There were a few other tracks and I actually traversed around the rope, so I only kind of broke the law. It was worth it. This terrain was great. 35 degrees and gullied out with great consolidated smooth creamy snow. I rode this loop until the end of the day.









Rusutsu was an amazing area. All of the runouts and most of the major runs were flat, but the quality of the tree runs more than made up for that.


I decided to skip snowboarding on Saturday and took the trains to Muroran instead. Muroran is a smaller city on the southernmost tip of Hokkaido. Stepping out of the train station in Muroran was like stepping into another world. Everything was in Japanese, everyone was Japanese and no one spoke English. I doubt many white people even visit this area. I walked around the town for hours and tried to take in as much of it as I could. Even ordering food was difficult. I had to point at what somebody else was eating. I got lucky and had the best Pork Ramen I have ever tasted. The beaches were beautiful with black and grey sand. There were even lava rocks which easily floated. I came across a “cemetery” which was situated on a hillside by the ocean. The feelings were overwhelming as I showed my respect the best I could.













I left the next morning and took an express train to Chitose and then a local train to Chitose Airport. A short flight to Tokyo and then a 5 hour layover before flying back to SeaTac. The McDonalds at the International terminal was a welcome sight, and I wolfed down a couple Big Macs.

It is good to be home, and I can’t wait to leave again.

[mc_roon]

fucking sweeet. I can only imagine what it must have felt like to be the only westerner there and have no idea what the fuck was going on

[Hicks]

Nice.

That whole area around Sapporo must offer a high quality of life.

[fattwins]

I wouldnt eat stuff that I dont like period. Some of the stuff that hokkaido people eat grosses me out.

Even if Niseko opens up the stuff under the gondie it will never be steep nor play big. The biggest mountain in Hokks is barely 2000 meters. Go for the snow if you go for the terrain you will be very disapointed