I remember the first time I saw a Japan segment in a ski film. There were massive pillow lines, drops down an avalanche gates, and trees loaded down with snow. And I thought, “Wow, that looks amazing, I didn’t even know there was skiing in Japan.” As it turns out there as many ski resorts in Japan as there are in the U.S., and Niseko happens to get more snow than almost anywhere else in the world. So my friend Cat and I hopped a plane and traveled half way around the world to sample the goods. And the snow was just as good as it was in every film segment I have ever seen. Here are some of my favorite images from our Japanuary trip.
We chose to go to Niseko, located on the northern island of Hokkaido. It turns out its where the best snow in the world happened to be where we were, as we saw images from all over Japan of ski and snowboard pros getting some pow turns. While we were there we explored a few resorts—some quiet hills with only Japanese (Rusutsu and Kiroro), and others more developed and packed with Australians (Niseko-Hanazono,Hirafu and Annapuri). But no matter where we went there was bottomless, light and fluffy powder turns. Click on the images to read the story behind them, and to see more images click here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10102072787583963.1073741836.10206860&type=1&l=c63328d4e1
