Japanuary: A Pow Adventure on Hokkaido

Jordan Curet

January 28, 2014

Cat takes it all in from the top of Rusutsu. Behind her are Mt. Yotei, a volcano, and Niseko.

Japanuary: A Pow Adventure on Hokkaido — Cat takes it all in from the top of Rusutsu. Behind her are Mt. Yotei, a volcano, and Niseko.

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 renamed Rusutsu “Japanese for playground.” In addition to there being a massive amussement park at the base, there were fun features everywhere to play on. This particular feature is from an in-bounds Supernatural course.

Mythical tree monsters are called Juhyo in Japanese. They refer to the trees so laden with snow they become like stalagtite statues. And while it is considered sacred in the trees, and mostly untracked, we found our own sacred turns beneath the branches. This particular grove was found off the peak of Mt. Isola at Rusutsu, and hour from Niseko.

The snowboarding in Japan felt so soulful. Long sweeping turns in thigh deep pow. The silence created by the heavy snowflakes made the tree runs feel almost eerie. And the fact there were many runs where we never saw another person. These bottomless runs were found at Kiroro.

Local shredder Yuki Shimazu is pictured here. Se runs a local bakery, which she closes on powder days, and heads for the side country. There were seemingly endless turns to be found off the peak of Niseko .

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