Blogs from Hokkaido, Japan, Asia - page 24

I have been hearing about the amazing powder snow in Hokkaido for over a year now and was a bit sad when I left Japan without experiencing it. When I found out that I was to return, the first thing I did was book a snowboarding trip to Niseko (an area that I’d heard lots about). Ready to put my Tokyo grumpiness behind me, I rocked up to Haneda airport almost three hours before my flight. I passed the time with a good book, crossword puzzles, and lots of people-watching. I began to notice a high percentage of foreigners checking in with snowboard and ski bags in tow. My flight up was a bit rough, but it wasn’t able to wipe the stupid grin off my face. I was giggly the whole bus ride to Niseko ... read more

Sunday 27th Jan 08 Sooo much snow… With another 20cm falling overnight, it has now been snowing pretty much constantly for the last four days, and although the wind has blown a lot of the fresh snow away from the piste, the trees still have some epic powder to be skied. Donna and I headed up the mountain and straight into the trees that we did yesterday, and wow, the powder was even deeper. We worked our way through progressively harder and harder runs until Donna was skiing down a red run (intermediate difficulty) with a smile on her face the whole way, until she stacked it. It was hilarious, both her skis came off and one of them was buried in the powder so deep that it took five minutes of poking around to find ... read more

Friday 25th Jan 08 Well with a good overnight fall which continued for most of the day there was some excitement around the breakfast table as we planned our day and prepared to get out there in time for the first lift. I managed to tag along with another family staying at the lodge. They live in Jindabyne near Thredbo so it was safe to assume that they were reasonable skiers. As it turned out they are all expert skiers and took me off into the trees, knee deep in powder and steeper than I could imagine. I only really lasted until about lunch time and by that time my legs had turned to jelly and no matter how hard I tried they would just not work. It was blowing a gale, and the visibility was ... read more

Wednesday 23 Jan 08 Today was our first ski day in Niseko and what a day, although the official snow report called it a disappointing day, we had a blast. We started out just scouting out some green runs for Donna to ski whilst I went on a mountain tour with Deep Powder Tours. The tour was great as I was the only one to turn up so it was just me and two guides. We covered a lot of ground and skied black and red runs a full speed. Its was a blast. After a long lunch Donna and I went out to explore the Hanazono area of the mountain. Even just a few meters off-piste there was heaps of 10 inch deep powder and at one point I convinced Donna to take off her ... read more

Monday 21st Jan 08 Well today is our last day skiing at Club Med and with a bit of fresh snow over night it was looking to be a nice day. There was only one problem, it was bloody cold, and every now and then the wind would pick up and blow snow and ice in our faces. In the morning we got up to the top of the mountain in the gondola but when we got there the cloud had come in and there wasn’t a very good view, then by the time we got halfway down the mountain the visibility had improved so I got the camera out to take some photos. Who would have thought that your hands could get that cold in such a short time, but I got some nice shots. ... read more