Japan Jan 2016

[nortonwhis]

Made a trip to Japan with the boys. Booked our flights approximately 18 hours before departure. Had no car booked, no hotels, no plan and generally no idea what we were getting into. Managed to grab an International Drivers Permit on the way to the airport and lucked out getting the last available car at Sapporo airport which happened to be a 4wd minivan just perfect for 4 dudes to trash.

Started off at Rusutsu resort riding bell to bell. There was a bunch of snow overnight - we stayed in the little onsen town of Lake Toyako.. We were frothing at this point and didnt grab many photos
Day two we went exploring looking for a road that we saw on google maps to see if we could do some touring. Found a car and a nice skin track so followed it. The zone is called Shiribetsu and its off the back of Rusutsu resort. Everyone told us there was no steep terrain in Hokkaido, but this was about 35 or more for a bunch of turns.
Skinning up thru the forest.

Sun popped out.

Vision was a problem

It was about -15C when this storm rolled in. Lowest density snow for any of us

Hard to beat turns like these

Beauty day - Beers at the car then off to hot chef for a katsu curry bowl


From there we drove to Otaru and to Teine in the morning. Sweet resort with more steep terrain and great views over Sapporo and the Sea of Japan. Also lots overnight snow followed by blue bird days.

Steep, deep, light and no crowds.

[nortonwhis]

With the weather forecast looking clear, we went to Central to try and bag some peaks. We stayed in Furano but didn't ski the resort. Instead we drove Tokachidake to tour and see if we could get some beta for the following day which was meant to be bluebird

Interesting creek crossing

Using a map in Japanese we eventually broke through to the alpine. The whiteout was strong at this point.

Snow was almost too deep for the terrain which wasn't as steep as we were hoping.


Some fun but mellow turns through the trees and then off to Fukiage Onsen to recover. We were all starting to feel the affects of 5 days off non stop riding at this point, so the onsen was the bomb

The next day dawned a little cloudy but we drove back to Tokachidake anyway in hope it would burn off. Some clouds were hanging around the face we wanted to hit, and we werent sure whether the couloirs went or not so we played the waiting game hoping they would. Eventually Furanodake came into full view.

We followed our skin track from the previous day, right to the knob just as the clouds rolled in.

After a few tense moment and debates about whether we were in the right spot, the clouds burned and we dropped in. Two went far lookers left, two in the middle of the face. 600 metres of waist deep blower at 40 degrees with multiple couloirs.

[nortonwhis]

All four of us have lived in Whistler for the past 8+ years and there were definitely a lot of "best run ever" calls being thrown around after this lap. It was worthy of a second lap. Just for anyone in the area, I would recommend following the creek back to the initial creek crossing and following the initial skin track, rather than trying to push up the closest ridge. It took us much longer and nearly had us out in the dark. Straight to the onsen again after this day. We were bagged.

We decided to head back to Sapporo and on to Niseko as it was storming there. Unfortuantely we couldnt find accomm so we crashed in Sapporo. On the way we made a couple of stops for some classic roadside lines.

Some spines we spied from the side of the road between Furano and Sapporo.


We hit up Kokusai which was again lots of fun. No photos from. Had our only run in with patrol here for poaching under a chair. Everywhere else was super mellow for stuff like that.

Back to rusutsu and shiribetsu for our last few days.
Not sure if this is the slackcountry or shiribetsu

Slackcountry. You got to hit the terrain park after this too which made for fun laps.

Shiribetsu

Last run of the trip for the boys. Shiribetsu dropping back down to the rusutsu resort in the top corner there

was a gooder


We went and got hammered in Niseko for our last night as a crew. Fun times
I did one more night at Bankei in sapporo which was a surreal finish to a surreal trip. Shredding knee deep blower under the yellow lights for 3 hours with no other tourists around.

1 last shot that pretty much summed up the whole trip

[spankthepow]

Sweet stoke! Kicking it in my van outside Niseko now

[Danno]

Damn.

[Kopi_Red]

Awesome.

[phatty]

Sweet TR. I'm there in 2 weeks. No solid plans yet so I can play the weather.

[406]

Nice! I was there Jan 11-20 and visited several of the same spots. Had really wanted to do Tokachidake, but weather/logistics issues, looks like a good one.

[TahoeJ]

Damn. Are those avy barrier pillows as fun as they always look?

[garyfromterrace]

Done in extremely good style from start to finish! Thanks for posting.

[Blizzard7763]

Norton, what skis did you ride? I'm leaving in a couple of weeks and can't decide what to bring.

Phatty, how long will you be in town? We'll be there March 4-13.

[RXevolv]

That's awesome! Hoping to visit someday

[Wickedbrew4u]

Rusutsu pow days. So good. God how much was the flight? 18hrs +

[nortonwhis]

blizzard - I snowboard. 1 skier took an old pair of s7's with marker bindings and complained about the weight all trip. Other guy had a pair of Faction Candide and then 1 set of something else faction for resort skiing, same boots though.

flights with Air canada we 1500, full service, think total travel time via tokyo for me was 13 hours

tahoeJ - fun yes, but you had to send them deep to get over a flat landing.

[skinipenem]

Sweet!

[XXX-er]

Nortonwhis rented wheels but if you are shleping it all around on the bus a 1 ski quiver is gona be way lighter, we were busing it so we did the one ski quiver, I took Vulcans/dynafits/lotus 120's and was pretty happy with that, my buddy had the localy made 108 underfoot Paranormal weapons/kingpin/Maestrale RS

something to consider which is popular in Japan especialy if you wana travel a bit before or after the skiing is couriering your skis to your hostel, its cheap and apparently dead reliable

my buddy had his luggage bumped on the flight to Vancover but mine were in my carry-on touring pack, his stuff showed up in time before the hop to japan but that old advice about taking your boots carry-on certainly applied

[Blizzard7763]

Awesome, thanks for the insight. We are renting a car, so I'm thinking I can pull off a two pair quiver.

We will definitely be carrying boots on.

Glad you had fun!

[bobsdesk]

FUCK. YES.

[spankthepow]

Awesome, thanks for the insight. We are renting a car, so I'm thinking I can pull off a two pair quiver.

We will definitely be carrying boots on.

Glad you had fun!

Make sure you get 4WD. Roads in Hokkaido suck with a 2WD. And x 2 on the one ski quiver. I'm super glad I only brought a single board. I hear the used market here is pretty good should something happen

[nutmegchoi]

Heard great things about Japan mountains.
Sucks I didn't get to check them out while I was on that side of the world.

[ffmedic84]

Awesome...hoping to make it out there next year.

[XXX-er]

Rusutsu pow days. So good. God how much was the flight? 18hrs +

I just settled up with my buddy, the flight was 1600+ can$ including the hop to vancover and we spent 4400can$ in total for 18days no car, not so bad reallly

my buddy did find a cheaper flight to china with a 15 hr layover and backtrack to Sapporo but we spent 4 of the 18days traveling as it was

[Angle Parking]

Wow! looks amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[kungpow]

Sick! Looks like you guys absolutely crushed it! I'll be posting a video from my trip soon.

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Hell yes! Still remains the highest spot on my bucket list. Next year...