The next day we got a late start and ferried over to Goshiki onsen, which sits on the backside of the Niseko United mountains and reportedly had some fun ski touring terrain. The summer mountain pass road closes just past the onsen, and skintracks kick out from there headed to all parts.
Soon after skinning, we spied the summit of Mt. Iwaonupuri, a smallish but beautiful-looking peak with a nice little chute off the main ridge we aspired to hit. The clouds cleared, too, making us mega optimists:
But as we made our way up, the weather slowly closed back in. By the time we hit the summit, it was a total whiteout again with hammering winds.
We threw puffies on and waited for thirty minutes for the weather to clear alongside a local Japanese skier who was determined to light a cigarette in the pounding wind. After awhile, we decided it didn't look like it would clear, and we bailed back down our skintrack in a whiteout, inching our way down and setting off small, newly-formed windslabs that made us puckered for both ourselves and our friend still at the top.
Sure enough, we got to the bottom and the weather cleared again. Our Japanese friend center-punched the main bowl in bluebird light and then exclaimed "very cold!!!" when we saw him in the parking lot.
Thinking we were going to just call it for the day, we had a beer at the van. Then another sucker hole opened up, tempting us back onto our skins to get a rebate run on the mellow backside of the Niseko mountains. Of course, we skinned up and it closed in again. We waited again, didn't see it clearing, and then rode the mellow pitch back to the car. Considering it a "rest day" at this point, we rolled down the street to the hot spring, which didn't really allow you to take photos but was still super cool (and with real, smelly, hot spring water).
Almost everywhere, even individual toilets, has slippers for you to use indoors:
Refreshed, we drove down to Niseko to get dinner. While many Hokkaido ski areas are surrounded by dead-quiet, rural countryside, Niseko had a Breckenridge-style downtown, glitzy hotels, and plenty of kooks and foreigners hamming it up. The only option we could find without a wait was at a food cart village, a rarity in Japan since eating on the street is generally verboten:
We then drove off to a nearby mich-no-eki, or rest stop, where you're welcome to car camp. Here we were joined by many other Japanese van lifers living the full car danchi lifestyle, with their selection of comically petite (by US standards) RVs:
We used Dongy's portable wifi router to check about a dozen different weather forecasts. The next day would be our last day together before I had to head into Sapporo to pick up two friends from New York, and if we were going to hit Yotei -- the iconic volcano that dominates the Niseko-area horizon -- tomorrow would have to be the day. One forecast called for it to be clear, the rest said cloudy. We went to bed with great anticipation and woke up to... BLUE BIRD!!
When I finally stepped out of the van and saw Yotei rising out of the flat farmland around us, I was flippin' ecstatic. We might actually get on top of that thing!! We got our shit together and starting driving towards it immediately.
We arrived at the Makkari trailhead -- the shortest way to the top -- to find a quiet lot... and also that Dongy had left his ski poles back in Goshiki!!! No matter -- having broken a pole basket and remedied it from nature's supplies before, soon I had fashioned two ski poles from tree limbs with branches ski-strapped in an X to the bottom to make a basket, and we were off!
With 5,500 vertical feet to climb, we set a moderate pace, and slowly passed soloers and groups on our way up. I'm sure they were super confused by our homemade poles, but no matter. Some light weather had come in, and Dongy and I were both worried our luck had run out, but we just continued to skin upwards without saying anything about it. After about two hours, we realized we were coming level, and then climbing above, the cloud layer, which didn't seem to be moving upwards. We were stoked, and the views were absolutely incredible!
By this point, we were the lead group, and alternated turns powering through the new snow following the faint outlines of an old skintrack. As we got higher, bursts of wind would absolutely hammer us, and all you could do was put your head down and hold your position.
The last 1,000 feet probably took us two hours to gain... the snow got firmer, the wind stronger, and eventually we switched to bootpacking and traded lead with a Japanese dude who had caught up with us. Punching through the hollow snow was tiring enough that crawling was more efficient. But eventually we cleaned the final roll and I found myself on top of this surreal volcano for a few brief, emotional moments before I turned to shoot Dongy and our Japanese friend as they climbed the final few feet in front of a vista I'll not soon forget:
Occasionally the wind would stop, and allow us views down into the caldera of the volcano. People were skiing it from the other side, and it looked great, but we would have had to traverse halfway around the rim to get to a point we could drop in, and with time running out before we had to head to Sapporo, and frankly being sick of the stiff wind, we strapped in to head down and get the main part of the run before the growing summit party could think to do the same.
We made about five turns before we had to unstrap again and downclimb over some scree, but we were psyched to be out of the wind.
Back on our boards, we rode a narrow section of stiff windboard before coming into the main gut on the south side of the mountain, which was our pristine, untracked, sitting-above-the-clouds prize for fighting our way to the summit. It was 20 turns I'll surely never forget. Dongy:
Yours truly (thanks for the pic, Dongy!):
Surreal turns in an unforgettable setting. Thanks, Yotei!! At this point we transitioned back into the trees -- which were more tracked since many of the groups had dropped early -- and traversed until we found some untracked glades to wind our way back to the car through.
We were worked by the time we got back to the rollercoaster ski track back to the parking lot, and I happened to fall right where we'd picked up our materials for our homemade poles, and so I left mine then to regenerate into soil or whathaveyou and replenish this place that had just given us so much .
To celebrate, we drove all the way back to Goshiki and dismembered an entire snowbank at the trailhead looking for Dongy's poles. By some miracle, I actually uncovered one! We called it after an hour of hard digging, and headed for Sapporo after a quick dip in the onsen again. Thankfully Dongy was able to get a warranty replacement in Niseko.
Big ups to Dongy for being a stellar backcountry partner and great decisionmaker. Stay tuned for Part II when I pick up TheBear and friend in Sapporo and we carry on the adventure!
"We're in the eye of a shiticane here Julian, and Ricky's a low shit system!" - Jim Lahey, RIP
Former Managing Editor @ TGR, forever mag.
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