Powder shredding festival in Hakuba!

After surviving the wild ride on the ferry...

Apparently some folks were having less trouble than me!
We headed from Niigata to Hakuba.

What is nice when you are chasing snow is that you have the chance to drive through some really nice snowstorm…

After having some really nice days last year in Hakuba Cortina, we headed straight there. Since there is no alpine in this resort, I was confident that lifts would be spinning and that everything would be open.

Well, I was mistaken…
When we showed up at the resort, I was surprised by how few people were there to enjoy the pow! I quickly understood that the top lifts (lift #4 and lift #5) would be closed all day for some avalanche shaddy safety reason…
We were than left only with some beginner lifts to ski on.

We eventually figured out that we could climb up above one of them to ski onto a run where pretty much no one have touch with 40cm of snow on it!

Unfortunately, at the end of the first run, my Dad when head first and on its shoulder onto a cat-track that we could see due to the low visibility. Since it looked only as a bruised shoulder, we kept skiing the run was so good that we lapped it a few times!

Beside the cat-track that are only a constant danger on low visibility day, it seems that there was other danger around on this resort!

We found out that Hakuba Cortina is posting on its Facebook page the lift status and snow report around 7h00AM each day.

The following day, since we were able to figure out that the same lifts at Hakuba Cortina would not be spinning, we headed out to Hakuba 47. We picked up my friend Tree and her boyfriend Stefan who just got in town.

Hakuba 47 have this special regulation about some certain tree skiing area.
In order to legally ski those areas, you need to follow a useless 10minutes lesson. Following this lesson, they handed you a bib.

Problem is that the legal area is fairly small and it is getting tracked out by around 4 laps.
We were then left to either ski some skied out runs and tree areas or poach some untrack trees… Guess what?! We quickly ended up poaching the non-legal trees!

Poaching trees as well as skiing right under the chairlift, when it is not allowed is not ideal to take pictures, so there is no trace of this skiing!
We lapped it until the patrollers start catching people who were joining us in the tree poaching!

The lift got eventually got shutdown around 3PM after quite a good day of skiing!

Since my Dad's shoulder was not really moving well, we went up to the doctor after the day.
30 minutes later, we were out of there with a diagnostic: most likely a torn rotator cuff.

The doctor also made it clear that my Dad should not be skiing anymore!
Especially after the third time he asked in a different way if he could keep on skiing! ;)

With my Dad out of skiing, I rallied up with Tree and Stefan to hit Hakuba Cortina which upper lifts should open after two days of constant snowfall which left around 80cm or so…

We weren't the only one that got the memo and there was plenty of people who showed up to enjoy the freshies!

We furiously lapped the resort trees which were pretty epic!
The snow was exactly as you would want it: deep, light and bottomless!!

We also lapped the backside of the resort from where you can make you way back to the resort easily through a cat-track.

Cortina is, in my humble opinion, the best resort in Hakuba on a snow day.
The fact that you are skiing mostly in the trees, creates some pockets and stashes where the snow stays good for a good full day of skiing.
The patrollers also let you ski everywhere which is really not that common in Japan.
The resort is also not grooming the powder unlike Happo-one which usually make sure there is as less fresh pow available as possible!
You can also traverse and ski the backside with quite an easy way back to the resort. But since every run on the backside takes about an hour or so to lap, the snow doesn't get hammer too quickly!

We went back the following day for another powder-shredding session which got a nice 50cm refresh overnight!

Hakuba not being quite a touristic destination beside skiing, my Dad was quite bored after 2 days of hanging around.

It was heart tearing to leave Hakuba since there was still some fresh snow that was requesting my shredding services to go play the tourist, but I kind of feel like I had to rallied up with my partner buddy.

Looks like there is much more sightseeing of the forecast than turns for the few days that we have left in Japan! I guess, I'll be able to catch up the close to no-sightseeing I've done on my previous 5 trips in Japan!

Cheers,
Evans. 

Rain, warm temperature and flurries in Japan...

The forecast was right about the rain.

It rained everywhere around Hakuba, Myoko and Nozawa Onsen all the way to the mountain top.
With not much snow on the forecast for the upcoming days and no rain reported in the resort in the northern part of Honshu, after a hearty breakfast, we packed our gear and hit the road for an 8 hours drive.


I've heard great things about Hachimantai.
This tiny resort was supposed to have some nice trees just next to its boundary that you can ski. While not being legal, it was supposed to be tolerated by the patrol. That area is just left of the runs that are forming a 'Y' on the following picture.

I guess that intel changed, since as we made it to the top of the resort, they made it somewhat clear that it was not allowed! There was also not even a single track!

We nevertheless poached it once.
As reported, the trees are nicely spaced and the angle steady and there was no trace of a rain crust.

 On our following lap, there was a patrol looking around and making sure no one would re-poached it.

We followed other tracks on the lookers far right side onto quite a mellow balade all the way down to a closed road.

Since that wasn't much of a great interest, we were kind of forced to ski inbounds.
The on-piste that are offered in this little resort has close to no interest. As the temperature got really warm, the groomed runs soften, but after a few laps, we were kinda bored…

Snow forecast of Geto Kogen were of 15cm of snow for the upcoming night.
We drove the hour and a half south to make it to this renowned powder magnet.

I've skied Geto Kogen a few years back and I've kept a good memory of it.
There was effectively some nice snow, but that was laid over a crust that formed yesterday due to the warm temperature.

With no new snow on the forecast for at least 3 more days, we faced the dilemma of either waiting 3 days for it to come or drive even further north to Aomori and catch a ferry to Hokkaido where new snow was reported.

The latest won and after grabbing some warm canned coffee, here we were driving again and heading to Aomori to catch the ferry to Hokkaido!

Fingers crossed that the conditions would gets epic again!