Snow !!!

...we wanted more...

...we had more!!

Every single morning since the last post, we had to take minimum 15cm to 20cm of snow off the car. That meant about 20-30cm of snow on the mountain!

We manage to get some complimentary tickets from Niseko Village. Thanks to them we enjoyed every days of one of the best week in Niseko (source of this information: some local guy in the Gondola). With planning to open a now permanently closed area (Moiwa no Sawa), Niseko Village will at least triple his expert terrain. Hopefully, it`s gonna happen next winter!

We had planned to do a little bit of backcountry, but the inbounds and the really nearby slackcountry (5 minutes hike-in to a direct ski-out) was offering steady mid-thigh run in some untouched POWDERRRRRRR!

The first few days that I was in Niseko, I was really wondering if they were really having as much snow yearly than what they claim (10-15m) but after this week I don`t doubt it for a split second! It was as snowy as the epic week we had last winter in Utah. I definitively had couples of my best days of the seasons here in just one week.

I`m not use to ski the same resort for coupls of days in a row... so when my dad told me he had booked a full week in a single place, I tought it will be really long and boring. But this morning, when we where packing our stuff to move towards Furano, I realize that week as just gone too fast!

As we were packing our stuff into the car into a full on blizzard, I was really wondering why we were moving. Being on our first journey we both thought it was a good idea to see more than one place.

So we drove on the not so nicely maintained japanese road for more than 6hours to cover the 250km that separate Niseko from Furano...

It has finally fallen more than 20cm over the day and a lot of the lift has stayed closed here because of the high winds. We only got 4 more possible days of skiing so hopefully Furano will be good to us!

evans

It finally turn to r@!% but ...!!!

... 20cm of new snow ruin by the r@!%...

We didn't ski that day, we walk around Niseko and spend most of the day touristing around.

After one day without skiing, it was enough so we headed out to Rusutsu resort about 30min from Niseko. That resort has some nice terrain that was mostly cover by a hard crust call ice...

The view was nice, but after spending an afternoon skiing on shear ice we headed back home to drink some beer...

We weren't too worried about the conditions because they were forecasting snow for most of the week. Well, we didn't have to wait much because on Monday morning, we woked up to 25+cm of new snow!
We headed straight to Niseko Village which is boasting the best terrain around. It was a really good choice!!!

Since it was really windy and really cold there wasn't much skier on the mountain. Plus, it kept snowing all day!

We skied until we weren't able to ski anymore...
To get some fresh legs, we went to a nearby "Onsen". It is pretty much like a hot tube but with a much more complicated routine before jumping in the water. The water is flowing naturally at just the perfectly (really) warm temperature.

With some new legs, we were all set to face another big day of skiing. With more than 65cm in two days, the conditions were getting really good.

We even had some blue sky for some times but then it started snowing again...

We skied non-stop from 8h30 until 15h00 enjoying some of the terrain that was not open the day before because it was too windy.

The weather around Niseko is really unstable. It can be snowing really hard and 5 minutes later, you have a blue sky and then 15 minutes after, it is snowing again.

At the time of writing, it is still snowing hard outside, but I can't be sure it's gonna last all night.

Sayonnara!

evans