Stories, pictures and video from the mountains of Hokkaido

Latest

A few shots from Sapporo Teine

Sat Feb 8th

It was a stunning day at Teine on Saturday with incredible views over the Sea of Japan and downtown Sapporo. There wasn’t too much fresh snow, and the bowls were quickly tracked out as it was a busy day for powder hungry foreign riders. We didn’t get too many powder shots, but hit the park in the afternoon, where the bottom kicker has been set up to give an incredible backdrop for photos.

Toshi styling it over the city

Scrappy looking jump, beautiful backdrop

View of downtown Sapporo from Teine Highland

 

Tues Feb 11th

Tuesday was a public holiday, so we got a bonus day on the hill. It turned out to be a real bonus. Alot of Hokkaido has been hurting for snow for the past few days, so we didn’t expect great things from Teine. But we were wrong. Snow had been falling steadily overnight, so we had 30cm or more of light powder. It seemed like we were the only people lapping the bowls, so we got line after line of faceshots.

Clare in bowl 4

Deep untracked powder. This is what Teine is all about.

Grady laying down a slash turn

Grady and I found a nice big drop that neither of us had hit before. It’s way out beyond bowl 5, so the landing was totally untouched and deep. We went for it, and caught it on video:

 

 

Posted by  |  February 13, 2014 | Categories: Sapporo Teine | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mount Racey Powder Day

Feb 1st 2014

Toshi getting deep at Yubari

We had planned to go to Teine on Saturday, but the forecast had strong winds which we thought might close the upper lifts. So we decided to go to Racey, which is more sheltered from the weather. As soon as we arrived, we realised we’d made a good decision. Probably 30cm of fresh snow had fallen overnight, ontop of a load of untouched snow from the previous snowfall. We lapped the gondola, finding new lines filled with deep light snow.

Clare, all smiles

Toshi

Dan

Riding switch in the pow, inspired by meeting Eric Pollard!

After a late lunch we hit the park for an hour or so. It’s starting to look really decent with 2 very nice sized kickers and some creative jibs. I’m looking forward to a few sunny park days over there in March.

Toshi styling it out

Fun hip / wallride feature

Racey isn’t a particularly well known ski area, especially with foreigners. So when it does snow, there’s never any competition for fresh tracks. It’s not huge, but it has some really decent lines and bowls if you know where to go. It’s a real hidden gem, but don’t tell anyone!

 

 

 

Posted by  |  February 4, 2014 | Categories: Mount Racey, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Weekend at Rusutsu

January 25th and 26th

We skied at Rusutsu both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. We stayed at Iwanai overnight on Friday and Saturday, giving us an easy drive up to the ski hill each morning. The weather had been really warm, with rain on Friday. Saturday it was still warm, with a dusting of new snow with a hard crust underneath. Sunday was way better, with 10 to 15 centimetres of new snow.

Clare skiing crusty snow on Saturday

Mike taking too much speed into a natural hit and getting off axis!

We headed over to West Mountain after lunch on Saturday to check out the new Sidecountry Park. With the crappy snow and bombed out landings, we weren’t going anywhere near the features. It’ll need a deep powder day for most of the drops and jibs to be rideable by even the best amateur riders! We headed further down West Mountain and spent a couple of hours at the end of the day lapping the terrain park. First time I’ve been in there and I was impressed with the setup. Although the landings were surprisingly hard! I’ll be back in the spring for sure.

Mike getting more comfortable in the air

With more snow on Saturday we had alot more fun. Lots of nice lines in the trees, and a few drops. Plus, I was using poles again, so I felt more comfortable and balanced on my skis.

Powder lines in the trees

Hitting the classic Rusutsu chairlift drop

Also on Sunday, we saw the crew from Nimbus Independent who are in Hokkaido for a month or so skiing and filming. I got a photo with a skiing hero of mine, Eric Pollard. Stoked to meet them, and to see them shredding at one of our home mountains!

With Eric Pollard. Getting photo bombed in the background by Pep Fujas

The wind really picked up on Sunday afternoon and it got pretty unpleasant on the mountain. We called it at around 2, and hit the road. Hopefully the wind and unsettled weather will bring more snow this week.

Posted by  |  January 27, 2014 | Categories: Rusutsu | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Teine and Racey Again

This was more or less a repeat of last weekend. If it ain’t broke, right?! Saturday it was Teine, with a crew of mostly skiers, plus Toshi holding it down for the snowboarders. Weather was pretty decent so we had great views over the city and the bay. The snow was still nice and deep, especially further out in the bowls.

Grady getting the scenic shot dropping into Bowl 1

View over Ishikari Bay

Top of Bowl 4

The park has been set up at the top of Highland, and for a change, it doesn’t suck!

Grady getting deep

Dropping pillows

There was no new snow on Saturday night, but plenty of sunshine in the forecast for Sunday so we decided to head for Mount Racey. We mostly stayed on piste and in the park. The incredible weather more than made up for the lack of fresh snow.

Panorama from the top

Hitting rollers

Still a few pow stashes to be had

Video edit from the weekend. The Africa Edit

 

Posted by  |  January 20, 2014 | Categories: Mount Racey, Sapporo Teine | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Deep Weekend

The January snow keeps coming. We had a three day weekend and each day the snow got deeper and deeper. This is what Central Hokkaido is all about.

Saturday 11th at Mount Racey in Yubari, a town famous for $10,000 melons and a bankrupt local government. It doesn’t often get as much snow as elsewhere, so I usually only go there in the spring for their excellent terrain park. Saturday was different though.

Cold light Hokkaido powder at Mount Racey

On Sunday we headed to Sapporo Teine. It was dumping all day. Poor visibility meant we only ventured into bowls 1 and 2, but we still got fresh lines well into the afternoon. The camera was pretty much useless in the bad weather.

Clare in bowl 2 at Teine

Monday was back to Teine with Grady and Meghan. The visibility was better so we ventured further along the summit ridge. Bowls 4 and 5 were chest deep and we had our choice of lines all day.

A glimpse of blue sky as Grady drops into another pillow line

Deep in bowl 4.5

It was good to meet another skier, Urban from Switzerland. He’s finished his post at Hokkaido University and is taking a month off to ski. Great timing!

Urban on the mellow run out to the traverse

Superhero snow!

An awesome weekend, and the deepest turns of the season so far. The snow looks set to continue, so next weekend should be equally good!

Posted by  |  January 14, 2014 | Categories: Mount Racey, Sapporo Teine | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Back to the Snow

We’re  back in Hokkaido. And as you’d expect its snowing. A blizzard was raging last night, giving us around 30-40cm this morning, drifting much deeper in places thanks to the wind.

View from the apartment this morning

 

Snowed in

Walking to work

I’ve been hitting the Greenland for the past couple of nights. Feels great to be back on skis! We’ve got a three day weekend from tomorrow so we’ll probably hit Mount Racey and Teine.

Hitting the park at Greenland

Posted by  |  January 10, 2014 | Categories: General | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Christmas in the UK

20131228-193854.jpg

Spending a couple of weeks in the UK.

20131228-194149.jpg

20131228-194210.jpg

20131228-194253.jpg

20131228-194314.jpg

20131228-194401.jpg

20131228-194434.jpg
Back to Hokkaido on January 6th

20140103-192914.jpg

20140103-192939.jpg

Posted by  |  December 29, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | 1 Comment

Greenland is Open!

A terrain park and a theme park. Greenland has everything!

Iwamizawa Greenland (also sometimes called White Park) is one of the dozens of local ski hills to be found all over Hokkaido. Almost every larger town has a hill with one or two lifts, cheap or free lift tickets and usually night skiing. Iwamizawa actually has two ski hills, the other being Haginoyama, whose claim to fame is that it’s ‘Japan’s widest ski hill.’

Greenland is by far my favourite local hill. It has a nice steep slope, a decent park, no crowds and being in Iwamizawa it gets a ton of snow.

The view from Greenland towards Sapporo and the sea in the distance

The glow of the floodlights a couple of nights ago alerted me to the fact that Greenland has now opened for the season. Normally I’d be there after work, lapping the kickers and getting the odd powder run between the trees.

Getting faceshots after work

Sliding sideways

Not the case this winter though. My hand is still pretty well bandaged up, with four pins supporting my broken matacarpal, so skiing is still off the cards until January. Reports of deep powder from friends hitting various ski hills last weekend were tough to hear! The doc says my op went well though and so far things are healing up nicely. I’m itching to get skiing again!

Latest X Ray!

 

 

 

Posted by  |  December 17, 2013 | Categories: Iwamizawa Greenland | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

North to the Links

Kamui Ski Links, December 7th 2013

We headed north this weekend, following the snow. Driving up through Sunagawa and Takikawa, the snow was pounding down so it looked like we’d made the right call.

Driving north through a classic Sorachi snowstorm

Arriving at Kamui Ski Links, near Asahikawa, there was still a real lack of snow low down, but higher up we could see the trees loaded down with fresh snow. Kamui is a gem of a hill, with loads of tree skiing and rarely any crowds. We know the place well having spent a lot of time there and we always seem to run into a few Asahikawa locals who are keen to shred. Today we met up with the southern hemisphere boys, Ross from South Africa and Andy from Oz.

Looking up from the base at Kamui. Lots of bare patches still showing.

From the top of the gondola, only a couple of runs were officially open. Of course, they were tracked out very quickly. But, turning left out of the gondola and ducking the rope gave us several options of wide open untracked trails, running all the way down to the base of the mountain.

Ross powering down the closed trails

Sending a 180 off a cat track

Despite the sketchy bottom section, our boards and skis remained unscathed. We continued to lap the gondola getting fresh lines every time.

Andy dragging a hand

Anything the snowboarders can do…

Clare getting in on the action

Slash turns in deep powder

An awesome day, but sadly my last for 2013. Operation on Thursday then a trip to the UK. We’ll be back in January, all healed up and ready to go. By then, the snow will have filled in all of the off piste areas, and we’ll be hitting some genuine Ezo pow!

Heading north after Kamui through northern Daisetsuzan. Beautiful empty landscape.

Posted by  |  December 9, 2013 | Categories: Kamui Ski Links | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Crap. Injured already.

Broken 4th metacarpal

Not the way I’d planned to start the season. Turned out that ‘sprained’ hand from last weekend is actually broken. I’m going back to the doctor next week and they’ll pin the bone together. I won’t be skiing the weekend immediately after that, and then I’m heading to the UK for Christmas and New Year. So it looks like my season is on hold until early January. Bugger.

4 ski days so far. I’ll have some catching up to do.

Posted by  |  December 6, 2013 | Categories: General | Tags: , | Leave a comment