Snow Chasers: Off the beaten path in Japan

It is always a tough call to leave Floating Island since it always deliver such awesome conditions.

Since we were a bit tired from the past days, we figured it would be a good day to give our legs a break. A day off also mean more time to eat in the morning. Japanese breakfast can be quite an experience since you always ended up eating food that could be serve for lunch or dinner...

After spending a day driving around Hokkaido’s mountain road, we were a bit bummed not to have found much more options. We got to the town of Nayoro that has a nice little resort in which I had a really good day a few years back.

That night we feasted on a classic japanese BBQ in the perspective of a great day to come! Driving off the beaten path in Japan gets you more into the japanese culture. With no english menu in sight and having to relay on an english-japanese dictionnary, we always end up having a great time!

It started really well with some great untracked slackcountry.

Unfortunately, we got warned by the snowpatrol that offpiste skiing was not allowed...

We were certainly bummed about that and we decided to respect the snowpatrol since the army was all over the place boasting their usual threatening look.

Army of the world, you gotta be scared about the technological advantage that Japan is developping!

Since backcountry from the resort was not allowed, we drove back to one of the spot we saw driving around the day before. Jomon Pass, on the road 61east of Iwanoai Lake about an hour from Nayoro.

With some pretty big snowbanks and some steep short sections, we tought we found gold!

After slapping our skins on our ski, we headed to the south of the pass.

We eventually found some great short sections, but overall, the pitches were either too short to really make this place a classic or a bit too densely treed up...

Nevertheless, powder was untouched and there wasn’t any snowpatrol to bug us!!

Certainly a nice way to spend my 9th birthday in a row skiing powder!

A nice dinner to a Japanese only izakaya ended this great day!

We started to drive back south and stop at the resort called Pippu, which received about a foot of snow overnight.

Some indications are certainly easier to follow than others!

The resort certainly feature some great snow but it is overall juste barely enough steep to ski it. We didn’t fully understood how the price of the lift tickets were working, but we ended up paying 12$ per person for an afternoon!

Amelie had a close encounter with a local tree on which she left a tattoo!

Meanwhile, the snow has kept hitting the central part of the island.

We then kept driving south towards Sapporo Teine.

This resort is about 30-45minutes of downtown Sapporo and feature the steepest terrain of Hokkaido.

And the best thing is that there are some great slackcountry options that are tolerated!

Usually, it is better to wait a little bit later in the season to ski it, but the conditions were just great!!

We kept moving towards Otaru.

As we got there, there were some obvious signs that a lot of snow has fallen here recentrly. Snowbanks were almost creating tunnels on the sidewalk and trucks dumping freshly fallen snow in the ocean kept coming and coming.

If you ever stop by Otaru, make sure to get the Bakudanyaki.

They are huge takoyaki balls with cheese and other delicious toppings. I haven't found them anywhere else in Japan and that's a bummer!

We eventually decided to ski the local ski hill.

Otaru Tenguyama is not a major ski destination but even if it lacks a proper website, it still has an high speed tram... and a sumo ski school!

There were some nice slackcountry options to ski skier’s right of the tram. Apart from 3 locals, we were pretty much skiing it by ourselves!

By looking at the pillows, there wasn’t much skier using this slope either!

If by any chance, you get bored of skiing powder, there is also a ski museum at the top of the lift! Skiing certainly has been a great part of Japan's history!