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

BMC

Out on the slopes
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So it snowed again in Niseko. Knee high to up to waist deep accumulations of very light dry snow. However, as the base has melted in the high temps the last few days, and then refrozen, the very light snow still has you mainly skiing the very scratchy base beneath.

It’s a vast improvement on the last few days, but tomorrow will be better.
 
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Mattadvproject

Mattadvproject

Love that powder!
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Jan 19th - Back in Furano

After a few nights inbetween sessions staying in Chitose, it was time to head back to Furano. On the 18th we skied at Mt. Racey in Yubari, but the snow was mostly dust on crust. We spent a few hours working on our avalanche rescue skills and then I took the guys on the scenic tour of Yubari, the former coal mining town that has fallen on hard times and has seen it's population decline massively. There's many abandoned apartments, an abandoned school and a baseball stadium. There's also all the old painted movie posters on the sides of some of the buildings from the old Yubari international movie festival. Quentin Tarantino was at that festival launching Pulp Fiction but at the same time he was writing Kill Bill. If you remember Kill Bill 2, then the school girl assassin was called "Gogo Yubari" and legend has it Tarantino gave her the name Yubari in honor of the town.....

On the 19th, the sun was out and we'd had a couple of inches of very low density snow, so we headed to the Furano zone. I only have 2 people with me as 2 others couldn't make it (one is sick but trying to come out later if he gets better), so it's a very small group. We started by taking the ropeway and then doing a quick warmup lap in the trees next to the top double chair and that went well, so we headed out the sidecountry access gate into an area I call the diamond. There were a few tracks but the skier's right side was still untracked and in places it was knee deep. Lovely stuff!

Next up we headed back up the tram and over to the Premium Zone and a chance for one of our group to try skinning for the first time. I went through the basics and up we went. He did great, no issues. The bottom of the PZ was really nice with a run through the open face I like to take yielding more good pow. I fell (more like a plop) off a glide crack on the skier's right side and directed the guys to stay left. The snow was decent with more deep spots.

We did some more skiing down to the Kitanomine side of the resort and had a late lunch. The guys were pretty tired so we headed up the gondola and then over to the Link lift (double chair that links Kitanomine to Furano and closes at 3:20pm so you don't want to miss that one). Then we skied back down to the van. We had a nice meal at the Fukuzushi sushi place and the group threw down a lot of cash on a ton of food. It was quite the feeding frenzy!

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- Matt
 

Jim McDonald

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I'm in Furano, Matt.yellow helmet & jacket. Wave if you see me.
 
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Mattadvproject

Mattadvproject

Love that powder!
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Jan 20th - Rolling the Dice

My expectations were pretty low as the weather forecast wasn't calling for any new snow but when I woke up, there was about 3 inches of fresh on the van. So you're saying there's a chance? Well, maybe, but I thought we might hit the road and try somewhere different. Unfortunately I was down to only 1 as Phillipe was nursing a bit of a muscle twinge from the day before and he wanted to rest for the big powder that was forecast for the 21st, so it was just Caroline and myself. I'm not going to name this resort we went to as we have something pretty special there, but if you've been to Hokkaido before, then it shouldn't be too hard to work out....

The sun actually started to come out and it was a lovely drive, about 1 hour 15 minutes drive from our base in Funrano. We arrived around 10:00am and had purchased our full-day lift ticket (5,900 JPY or $45). Officially, we were supposed to download an app to sign up for backcountry access but the app was all in Japanese and looked like more a marketing tool, so we didn't complete the signup for that. We'd just have to be responsible for ourselves (which we always are).

We had a nice warmup run from the top of the top chairlift and found untouched snow in the trees, about 3 inches and none of the icey crust we had been witnessing in some aspects in Furano. That was a nice start but then it was time for the real stuff, the backcountry bowl area behind the summit. That's an easy sidestep and traverse to get to and when we got up there around 11am, there were only a couple of tracks. Yes please, we'll have some of that!

It had been a few years since I had last been there so the priority was staying a little higher and finding an easy traverse back to the resort and marking it on the Gaia Pro map I had recording our tracks. We had some lovely skiing through the trees but didn't get much vertical before we hit what I thought was going to be the high traverse. Sure enough it went through really well and after a long but easy traverse, we made it back to the resort boundary. It was an easy ski down some groomers and we popped out next to the high-speed quad we had just taken up. A very efficient lap!

We definitely needed to do that again! This time though I wanted to head far skier's left to a large open bowl with open birch trees on it and it was completely untouched apart from two tracks (we had seen two people skinning back up from lower down below our original traverse line). We skied an amazing line to the right of the two tracks and had great vertical down to the skin track. The skin track went up for a short way and then went down and pretty flat, so I decided to just sidestep up and then we could get a little speed up and traverse a fair way. My goal was to try and regain our original traverse line without putting the skins on.

We had a bit of brush to bash through and then another short sidestep but finally we merged back onto our original track. Perfect! The bang for the buck just got a lot higher and the juice was definitely worth the squeeze..... now we had a pretty efficient way out (plus getting in was another easy traverse). We circled back for a 3rd lap and the sun came out and that was the icing on the cake. We ended up skiing two more laps with the sun out and the lines were just spectacular. It wasn't the deepest snow I've ever skied in Japan (boot top deep) but with the sun out, it was such a beautiful, aesthetic line and possibly in my top 5 of lines skied in Japan. That is a run that definitely makes a trip to Japan live up to the expectations. Caroline was stoked and she said some of the best runs of her life. That just made my day! After all the challenges I've faced in the last 3 years, I'm glad I stuck with it.....

So, we made 4 laps in that zone and all were quality, especially the last 2. What a surprisingly awesome day. We had a tasty lunch (Nepalese curry with a cheese naan that absolutely rocked). We finished if off with a visit to an old guiding friend, John Morrell who used to own a store in Furano but moved to this zone. He has a lovely little lodge and can skin up into the mountains from directly behind his home. What a great setup. It was nice to catch up with him as I hadn't seen him for 4 years or so. We made it back to Furano and had a lovely dinner at my favorite restaurant Masaya. Awesome day! Now it's snowing so hopefully should be a solid powder day in Furano.

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- Matt
 

Jim McDonald

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Dunno about Matt but we chowed down on sone great charcoal roasted chicken.
 

Jim McDonald

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:doh:
 
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Mattadvproject

Mattadvproject

Love that powder!
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The skiing pics look grand. But what didja eat?

Some food pics for you Kevinyia....

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Nepalese chicken curry and cheese naan (best naan I've ever had!) from today....


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Lamb Katsu curry in Otaru....


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Pork soy ramen and fried rice set, Otaru.....


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Weiss beeru, Otaru!

- Matt
 
Thread Starter
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Mattadvproject

Mattadvproject

Love that powder!
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Jan 21st - Oops I did it again.....

To quote Brittney.... It was so good the previous day, we had to go back for another serve. This time Philippe was with us and I really wanted to show him the tasty treats we'd sampled yesterday and our other group came over as well. It was a beautiful drive and we made it to the mountain in about 1 hour 15 minutes. There was about 6 inches of fresh on average but in places it was a lot deeper.

We headed straight up the gondola and then down a nice powder run to the chairlift. That's a quick ride to the top and then we had an easy traverse into the backcountry bowls. There were a couple of tracks out there already but still plenty of room for untouched lines. The wind had added a very slight crust but it was marginal. As we got lower, than crust disappeared and we had some great turns. Philippe was hooting and hollering like crazy!

I had to break trail most of the way out but we found the remains of our old track and I followed the GPS track from the day before so we made decent progress. We cycled back for another run and this time went even further to the skier's right. This time we took it way down, about double the pitch and the snow was even better. I got quite a few faceshots on this run. Lovely stuff!

We had to put the skins on and hike out. This was Philippe's second time skinning now and he's doing well. He had some issues with his Marker Kingpin bindings icing up and the touring lever not locking out so the ski popped off a few times, but I showed him how to de-ice and he was able to get two clicks and lock them out so they didn't pop off again. Caroline is skinning like a pro!

It took a little while to get up to our old skin track, but I have to say touring in the new Tecnica Zero G Tour Pro and the Majesty Skis Vanguard Carbon is quite enjoyable. It's quite a lightweight setup for a ski of that size (118mm underfoot and 194cm) and it all goes well uphill. Living in Granby at close to 8,300ft also helps as we are skiing at more than half that altitude or less.

We finished the day at the sushi train in Furano and had some tasty foods. Not sure on the plan for tomorrow but I'm sure I'll work it out. Today was a good day!

Tomamu1.jpg
Thanks to Philippe for this photo


Tomamu2.jpg
Thanks to Philippe for this photo


Tomamu3.jpg
Thanks to Philippe for this photo!


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They should have adult versions of this....


- Matt
 
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Mattadvproject

Mattadvproject

Love that powder!
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22nd Jan - Funrano

The vanometer only said 2 inches of fresh but I knew that the snow in Furano had been piling up the last few days, so it should be much deeper in places. It would be time to keep it local; Furano it was! It's only a 10-minute drive and now I've figured out the scenic drive (past the Furano Cheese Factory) it's short and sweet. We even found a car parking space in the first lot next to the Furano ropeway, so it was meant to be.....

Our usual warm up run (the Diamond) was tracked out down the middle, but off to the side in the open trees it was knee deep with only a few tracks. Lovely stuff! I'll take a side order of faceshots please..... the traverse out was even skiing really nicely too, not many tracks in there, so that was a fun start. We headed back up the ropeway and then took the double chair to the top, this time we headed out to the Premium Zone.

The temps were really dropping and with the windchill, temps were -23C. Brrrr! I was relieved to start skinning and warm up again, it was really cold. At the top we transitioned and then took the central ridgeline down before dropping off to the left side. Where there were no tracks it was really deep, about knee deep in those spots and it was easy to get some snow up in your face.

Next up, we headed over to the Link lift and skied to the right of it. Then I have a secret line through some trees that takes you away from the resort and into a large creek area. That was untouched and we had 4 quality pitches before we hit the creek and followed it out for a while. Where the creek gets steep you have to sidestep and traverse out to the left and go through the forest for a while before regaining the resort on the Kitanomine side.

Unluckily and unknowingly for Philippe, he brushed past a thorn tree and that ripped a nasty gash in his ski pants (subsequently covered up by my duct tape). That plant was mean! We had one last creek crossing to make (I accidentally startled a group of 4 Yezo Sika deer down below) with a short sidestep/sideways hop across. We all stepped a little in the water and when we stepped up out of the creek and into the snow again, the snow immediately stuck to the bases of the skis and caked them in ice and snow that stopped you from being able to slide.

We made it back into the resort and onto a trail and then I took my plastic inclinometer and scraped off all the ice and snow. We could move again! We headed down to the gondola and took that back to the top. We had a fun ski down to the Link chair and took that back to the Furano side. Then a quick ski down a groomer in the dumping snow and we were back at the van. We headed back to the town but stopped at the Furano Cheese Factory for an early dinner (3pm, good timing as 2 coach loads of tourists had just left) and some pizza (best in town!) and some cheese samples. At 4pm, I showed Philippe how to wax his skis and I got to use my new Japanese iron I had bought in Chitose.

Tomorrow we head down to Otaru for 5 nights and the weather forecast shows heavy snowfalls for the rest of the trip. Fingers crossed!

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Rest day tomorrow and then skiing again on the 24th!

- Matt
 

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