International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) 2023 Hokkaido Trip Report

[Mattadvproject]

28th Jan - Sightseeing in Otaru

I had a little time to kill in Otaru after I had checked out of the hotel. The remainder of the two groups went to a whiskey distillery about 30 minutes outside of Otaru but I stayed in the city and did a little shopping for my wife and some sightseeing to pass the time. I drove to the area where there is a famous steam clock and they make music boxes (or at least there are museums displaying them).

It was very busy and very touristy but a nice change of pace. It was fun to see all of the different architecture and art and craft businesses. My wife loves lavender and I was able to purchase her several different lavender products so hopefully she'll actually be happy to see me when I come back home next month! Let's hope so..... Anyway, here's a little look at some of the sights of Otaru......



Just arrived in Hakodate for 2 nights with a little stop to ski in Rusutsu on the way. More of that tomorrow.....

- Matt

 

[Jim McDonald]

Otaru & Hakodate are two of my favorite cities in Japan

 

[dan ross]

28th Jan - Sightseeing in Otaru

I had a little time to kill in Otaru after I had checked out of the hotel. The remainder of the two groups went to a whiskey distillery about 30 minutes outside of Otaru but I stayed in the city and did a little shopping for my wife and some sightseeing to pass the time. I drove to the area where there is a famous steam clock and they make music boxes (or at least there are museums displaying them).

It was very busy and very touristy but a nice change of pace. It was fun to see all of the different architecture and art and craft businesses. My wife loves lavender and I was able to purchase her several different lavender products so hopefully she'll actually be happy to see me when I come back home next month! Let's hope so..... Anyway, here's a little look at some of the sights of Otaru......

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Just arrived in Hakodate for 2 nights with a little stop to ski in Rusutsu on the way. More of that tomorrow.....

- Matt

Sold! Looks wonderful.

 

[Mattadvproject]

29th and 30th Jan - Rusutsu and Hakodate

Made it to Hakodate on the 29th. Staying in the beautiful Hakodate Onuma Quasi-National Park for 2 nights. Had a beautiful drive here via Rusutsu, where we skied for several hours on Sunday. The drive around Lake Shikotsu and then Lake Toya, was spectacular, although the drive on the Expressway after that was not as fun....

It was interesting revisiting Rusutsu, having been there twice in 2016 and having spent so much time in other areas of Hokkaido. What a contrast it was! It's a big area with open trees and plenty of high-speed quads, but the amazing knee-deep snow got tracked out very quickly.

It was a weekend, but it was still a bit of a shock. It was very Westernized, too much for my liking, unfortunately. It was a positive affirmation that staying further north provides a better all-around experience in terms of quieter slopes and better snow, a different cultural experience and cheaper prices.

I think on a deep day, mid-week it could be pretty good, but in general, I think Otaru and Furano tick more boxes for me and a lot of our guests. Happy to have given it another try and glad the guests who arrived early for our Tohoku program got a solid warmup in and got to experience something different before we head to the tranquility of Tohoku....

I had a work/rest day on the 30th and drove Dave to Hakodate Nanae ski area. He reported that conditions were not great and didn't ski too long. The views of Mt. Hakodate from our hotel (Hakodate Onuma Prince Hotel) and at the ski area, were amazing. We purchased our tickets for the Shinkansen from Shin-Hakodate to Shin-Aomori online for the 31st and the start of our Tohoku trip.....



Shiribetsu on the left, Yotei on the right....


The Talking Tree, seems to have had has voice and song quietened..... not quite as loud as it used to be, probably drove the staff who worked nearby up the wall.


Carousel in the indoor mall area in Rusutsu


View of Mt. Hakodate from our hotel this morning


View of Hakodate from Hakodate Nanae ski area


Swan at the Hakodate Onuma Quasi National Park



Switching it over to a new blog tomorrow. Tohoku here we come!

- Matt

 

[James]

Those mountains look like volcanoes, some having blown the top.
Any active?

 

[Jim McDonald]

That is Mt Komagatake, an active volcano about 40km north of Hakodate city: Among Japan's most active volcanoes, this 1,131-m. mountain caused a major tsunami in 1640. The name comes from the peak's resemblance to a "koma" Japanese chess piece, which you can see clearly in Matt's excellent photos above.




There is a small Mt Hakodate which overlooks the city and is famous for its night views:

 

[Rainbow Jenny]

Furano gondy didn’t open at all today but we got on the first tram with 8 am arrival. What’s the deal w/just 4 gals among about 70 bros on the first tram?

Hiked to the premium zone for the first time, it’s every bit @Mattadvproject promised: the driest and just about the deepest powder I can recall.

 

[Mattadvproject]

Time for the video!

Here are the highlights from Furano on the 7th Jan.....




I'm going to try and post video from most days of the Hokkaido trip, so there's a lot to come.... hope you like it! Apologies in advance for any heavy breathing and over the top hooting an hollering!

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Jan 8th - Kamui Ski Links

T'was a bluebird day, warming temps and it was the weekend so it was busy. With no new snow, the back bowls were getting a little tracked up but we still found some good snow. We saved the best run of the day for the last lap with a great line that was untouched in the trees near one of the main runs. That's a fun little stash!




- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Jan 11th - Otaru

Footage from the 11th Jan from Mt. Notgonnatellu, our favorite little resort in the Otaru zone. After the big storm and uncertainties about resorts even being open, we kept it local so to avoid a long journey if resorts were not open.

After only a small delay, the lifts were open and we had an amazing time skiing all the fresh lines we wanted. The trees were deep and snow quality light and dry. We had amazing views of the city and ocean and it just goes to show, you don't need a lot of vertical or a huge amount of lifts, to have an amazing time!




- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Jan 12th - Sidecountry Action!

The sun was out so we put on the skins and went for a little hike into the backcountry. It was a beautiful skin up tou our zone, with the birch trees caked in fresh snow. After about a 40 minute skin, we came to the start of our ridgeline. No one else had been out there and we had an untouched line all to ourselves.

The face above the ridge had a windcrust on it but as we got lower and onto the ridge itself, it was sheltered and the powder was nice and soft. We had a couple of nice pitches before hitting the creek bed. It was a difficult climb up out of the creek but it was worth it.

We skied the same lap again after lunch (not shown) and this time, took the creek all the way out to avoid the climb out and that was much easier. Then it started to really warm up and the skiing in the trees was done until the next re-fresh...... thankfully that wasn't far away!




- Matt

 

[James]

Jan 12th - Sidecountry Action!

The sun was out so we put on the skins and went for a little hike into the backcountry. It was a beautiful skin up tou our zone, with the birch trees caked in fresh snow. After about a 40 minute skin, we came to the start of our ridgeline. No one else had been out there and we had an untouched line all to ourselves.

The face above the ridge had a windcrust on it but as we got lower and onto the ridge itself, it was sheltered and the powder was nice and soft. We had a couple of nice pitches before hitting the creek bed. It was a difficult climb up out of the creek but it was worth it.

We skied the same lap again after lunch (not shown) and this time, took the creek all the way out to avoid the climb out and that was much easier. Then it started to really warm up and the skiing in the trees was done until the next re-fresh...... thankfully that wasn't far away!




- Matt

Are some of those trees what they call, (or the gringos), “monsters”? A guy on the lift was telling me how he’s going to Japan and skiing some “monster” area, because the trees get snow on them, droop, and look funny.

 

[Mattadvproject]

Are some of those trees what they call, (or the gringos), “monsters”? A guy on the lift was telling me how he’s going to Japan and skiing some “monster” area, because the trees get snow on them, droop, and look funny.

Snow monsters in Japan are the trees that get coated in snow and look all droopy and weird as you say, but they are mostly pine trees that get inundated with snow. These are birch trees in the video, so they aren't what you would normally refer to as snow monsters as they don't get as coated like the top of pines in the more exposed areas in Japan. Here's some photos from Hakkoda to show you what proper snow monsters look like....




- Matt

 

[James]

Nice monsters^
I take it tree wells aren’t a big hazard in Japan?

 

[Mattadvproject]

Nice monsters^
I take it tree wells aren’t a big hazard in Japan?

Thank you...... well, if you are skiing in the pine trees, then they could be, but we rarely ski in the pine forest as we look for the birch trees for better, more open skiing. The birch's don't have nearly as much tree well hazard as the pines. Probably of greater concern is going to be avalanches, but also glide cracks (both open and hidden), falling into creeks and what I call tree bombs, that is, frozen mushrooms of snow that have fallen down from the trees and are either buried or partially buried and if you hit one of those at speed, then you are going to have a bad day.....

 

[Mattadvproject]

Jan 20th

Session 1 finished with a couple of warm days and the skiing was marginal. All aspects got baked by the sun and warm temps and then it started to freeze up again, so the skiing wasn't great to finish off the session. Session 2 started with a much-needed re-fresh and we had a nice day of skiing in Furano on the 19th. We skied some nice powder but I didn't get a lot of decent footage so we can move ahead to the 20th where we had a stellar day.

I only had 2 people in my group as 2 had had to drop out last-minute and only Caroline from Australia was up for a ski. We hit the road and headed east about 1 hour 10 minutes to a resort I'd only skied a handful of days. I wasn't expecting much but they had about 20cm's of fresh and we had a nice warmup in the trees within the resort. I wanted to do a lap in the backcountry behind the resort and when we climbed over the ridge after passing through the gate, we found few tracks. The goal was to get my bearings again and map the traverse out.

The first lap was nice and then we headed back for me. This time I wanted to push much further left and we traversed to a whole new area. There were only two tracks in this entire zone and we had a beautiful untouched line in the sun. The skiing was great. There was a skin track which I decided to side-step up and then start another traverse line. We were able to hit our initial traverse line out so now we had a really nice and easy line out.

We skied two more laps and had a great day, probably the best of the trip so far. We liked it so much, we would head back for another go the next day. This is what it looked like....




- Matt

 

[James]

Those are some interesting looking trees in the middle.

1960 Toni Sailer in Japan

 

[Mattadvproject]

View attachment 196752
Those are some interesting looking trees in the middle.

1960 Toni Sailer in Japan

Those definitely look like snow monsters in that Toni Sailer video from Japan. I would guess that it was filmed in Zao Onsen. Yes, pretty cool looking trees in my video, they made for awesome skiing. About as open as they come.....

 

[Mattadvproject]

Jan 21st - back to the future....

Since we'd had so much fun the previous day, we went back to the same resort again for another round. This time I had both Caroline and Philippe with me (Philippe had taken the previous day off) and we headed back out to the backcountry bowl behind the resort. It had snowed again so most of the tracks were filled in, but the top open part had had some wind get to it, so there was a little bit of scouring. As you got down lower into the trees, it was sheltered from the wind and it was quite deep and we were getting some faceshots.

We ended up skiing two laps in the zone and went quite far down into the trees on the second lap and had to put the skins on to regain our traverse out. The snow was really nice down low so it was definitely worth the extra effort, plus more good skinning practice for Phillipe as this was only his second time touring (first time was in Furano at the start of the session). His transitions were getting much faster and his movements on the skin-track more efficient.

Another solid day and more snow was in the forecast!




- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Jan 22nd - Funrano!

We decided to take it easy and make the quick 10 minute drive to Furano. There had been more snow, not quite enough to fill in the old tracks but where you found a line that hadn't been tracked, it was very deep and definitely faceshot-able! We had a fun time skiing a variety of lines, from traverse-to sidecountry, skinning up to the Premium Zone and then some more traverse to terrain. As always, the bang for the buck was really high (ie we didn't have to work very hard to ski some deep powder).....




- Matt