January Photo-dump!
January 2015
Since the New Year vacation, the weather has been pretty mixed, and quite abnormal for Hokkaido. Warmer temperatures than average and longer gaps between snowfall has been the trend, we even had a very depressing day of rainfall a couple of weeks ago. BUT, we’ve still been able to get a good amount of riding in, and have been able to track down the best snow at the weekends. Not really much text to go with this blog post, just a load of photos, so, here you go…
Tom Steele from the US who contacted me for info on Hokkaido via Newschoolers.com. We were able to meet up at Teine for a day shredding the bowls.
Jon Horan from Australia dropping the knee. He’s travelling around Hokkaido this winter, living in his van. Who said telemarkers are smelly hippies?! (Actually much respect to the Car Danchi man!)
A day when the lift was on wind hold at Teine. Toshi, a park rat at heart!
After the rain and warm weather we had a couple of beautiful clear days. I took advantage of an afternoon off to go skin up Bozuyama a couple of times. Iwamizawa in the background.
The snow returned eventually. In Happy Valley at good old reliable Yubari!
Beth and Mike shredding together down ‘Girls Only’ at Yubari.
Friend of a friend, Parker, letting it rip down bowl 5 at Teine
A windy day at Teine, so the lift was running very slowly. Meant the lift queue grew pretty long.
I even had a day on a snowboard and enjoyed a lot more than expected!
It seems like the weather is back to a more normal trend for this time of year. Much colder, with regular snowfalls in the forecast. Hopefully that’ll continue. (Till April, preferably!)
Ezo Pow 
One more question if you don’t mind. Besides the official nature zones at Teine is it acceptable to ski the other “natural” areas within the ski area boundaries or are they off limits?
June 9, 2015 at 5:10 pm
The best terrain is outside the official ski area boundary in the bowls lookers right of the quad chair. This year they actually put in a gate to access this area. It’s pretty steep and the snow does wind load a lot so you need to be a bit cautious of that, but you can pretty much go where you want.
June 9, 2015 at 5:14 pm