Stories, pictures and video from the mountains of Hokkaido

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Opening Weekend at Teine

Sapporo Teine, November 30th & December 1st

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Riding fakie overlooking the coast (Photo by Dan Andrews)

Not a bad couple of days up at Teine. Far more terrain available than last weekend at Nakayama, and no crowds. In fact, we didn’t have to wait in a liftline once.

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Looking up at the summit from the Highland Lodge

A good crew from the Hokkaido Cartel came up, stoked to be getting the season underway.

Crew from the Hokkaido Cartel (Photo by Dan Andrews)

The peer pressure got the better of me on Saturday morning, leading to a crashed front flip and injured hand, meaning I rode the rest of the weekend no poles Harlaut style!

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‘Get upside down by Christmas’ was the challenge laid down over a few beers back in September

There’s a lot of sasa (bamboo leaves) still above the snow, but we found some decent powder stashes under the chair. The real highlight of Teine is the summit ridge, below which a number of bowls and chutes give some of the best steep skiing in Hokkaido. It’ll be a couple of weeks before they’re filled in with enough snow to be rideable.

Shredding pow no poles

Rory Bryce

Posted by  |  December 4, 2013 | Categories: Sapporo Teine | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nakayama Touge, November 23rd 2013

Nakayama Touge. Busy carpark and cars parked all along the access road.

Perched on the pass between Sapporo and Rusutsu, Nakayama Touge is one of Hokkaido’s smaller ski areas. Thanks to its position in the mountains, it is usually one of the first hills to open and almost always the last to close. It’s somewhere we rarely go, except in the autumn, when they have decent early snow, and late season, when they have a legit terrain park. It only has a single chairlift and a short, relatively mellow slope.

At this time of year, and with the warm weather during the week, I was more than happy to make the drive out to Nakayama to get our first lift served skiing of the year. With only a few hills open (Kokusai and Rusutsu being the other two options) it was always going to be busy. The lift line was 10-15 minutes or so for a chairlift ride of about 5 minutes!

Quite a wait for the lift. 10-15 minutes, for a short uplift.

We got there early, so the snow was still decent through the morning. Boot deep powder at the edge of the piste. Lots of lumps and rollers all over the place so we had fun jumping around and making the most of the short run.

Having fun on the small lumps and rollers

Soft snow in places

Clare, first day back on skis this winter

We were riding with Hattie, Dan and Mike who also got the K-Pass this year. Hopefully this’ll be our regular crew for the winter.

The K-Pass Crew. From left Hattie, Mike, Dan and Clare.

A fun morning, good to get back on the snow and start finding our feet again. Hopefully after some rain on Monday, we’ll get some decent snow through the week. Teine should be open next Saturday, so we’ll be heading there if mother nature cooperates…

Posted by  |  November 23, 2013 | Categories: Nakayama Touge | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

The Waiting Game

November 19th 2013

Snow can come and go very quickly in November

After the initial high of getting such a big dump of snow last week, we’re back to the autumn waiting game. Checking weather forecasts and webcams, and hoping for more snow. Hopefully for now the rain has passed. We had a full day and night of heavy rain and thunderstorms, which has washed away alot of snow. The webcam up at Nakayama Touge is at least showing that some snow has survived the downpour, but they still need alot more. The forecast suggests we’re in for some light snow everyday until the weekend, so fingers crossed (I’ve been saying that alot recently) it’ll build up enough for an opening.

Our K-Winter Pass covers 5 ski areas, 3 of which could potentially open this weekend – Nakayama, Sapporo Teine or Rusutsu. We’ll just have to wait and see where we’ll be heading to on Saturday morning.

Posted by  |  November 19, 2013 | Categories: General | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Turns of 2013/14

Iwamizawa Greenland. November 13th 2013

A 6:00am start for some turns before work. I headed down to Greenland with Dan and Mike. The snow was quite deep and crusty which made hiking a challenge for our unfit legs.

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Dawn at Iwamizawa Greenland

A short steep hike up the small bowl to the lookers right of the main lifts gave us a nice pitch for our first turns of the winter. Not the best snow, or location, but considering the date, we were happy with it. And for Mike, starting his first winter in Hokkaido, this was one of the deepest powder days he’s ever had! He’s in for a treat this winter.

Skis on and ready to slide

Skis on and ready to slide

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Dan (right) and Mike (left)

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First action shot of the winter!

We did a run down the side bowl, and then back to the top and down the front slope. It looked like someone had made a jump on one of the kicker mounds the previous day, so we headed over to hit that, with mixed results. ‘Unfortunately’ the GoPro video didn’t come out so there’s no footage of our jumps.

Not a bad start to the winter, but looking at the forecast, we’ll be waiting a little while for our next session. Hopefully more snow will arrive in time for Rusutsu and Sapporo Teine to open on the weekend of November 23rd/24th.

Stay tuned.

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Posted by  |  November 16, 2013 | Categories: Iwamizawa Greenland | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Winter Making an Early Appearance in Hokkaido

On Monday (November 11th) we woke up to a dusting of snow. Probably not more than 5 centimetres or so, but it was earlier than normal for snow to be falling in town and the forecast looked like we were due for another day or two of cold weather. It’s always good to see the first snow, but I’ve learned over the past few years not to get my hopes up in November, as cold snaps are often followed by warm wet spells.

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The view from the balcony on Monday morning

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5 centimetres on the car

Then on Tuesday morning, we got 35cm of new snow! Things were starting to look very wintery. Thoughts tuned to shredding, and plans were hatched. An early start, turns before work? When’s sunrise? 6:22, that’ll work. It’s on….

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The car on Tuesday morning. 35cm to clear.

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The wintery walk to work

Posted by  |  November 12, 2013 | Categories: General | Tags: , , | Leave a comment