| Ski Japanese Volcanoes |
|
|
|
Page 1 of 4 Graced with more snow than Whistler, lighter powder than Alta, a lunar landscape of inky rock and steaming springs, and a burgeoning wintertime infrastructure, Japan’s volcanic island of Hokkaido is fast becoming the world’s most exotic ski destination
Noriyuki "Nori" Watanabe, 41, drops a knee on the Giant Ridge of 6,302-foot Furano Dake, in Daisetsuzan National Park
Tomoko Kazama
“What do you think?” I ask, stripping skins from my skis. Watanabe, a 41-year-old mountain guide, adjusts his black helmet and signals for me to slide up next to him. “Very good,” he replies, pointing to a small rise. “Snow better over there. Go right, and we make another run. Steep!” I take a few minutes to enjoy the views and refuel on a few bites of dorayaki, a spongy cake filled with a bean jam that is surprisingly delicious. Nori, as everyone calls him, nibbles on a briny seaweed-flavored rice nugget. To our right, the mountains cradle a traditional Japanese guesthouse called the Ryounkaku inn. There, I can just make out the faint dots of figures relaxing in natural pools burbling with volcano-fired mineral water. Vapory tendrils rise above the enormous piles of snow. Nori pushes off and collects some speed down a buttery ravine laced with silver birch trees. I follow him, and soon I too am rocketing around the gnarled trunks with powder hissing off my boards like steam. Nori is right: The snow is silky beyond the rise, and each powder eight brings me closer to the reason I’ve come all the way to Japan. Hiring Nori for a few days of touring around Hokkaido has been the latest chapter in my mission to explore an island just coming into its own as a world-class ski destination. The sport isn’t new to Japan, of course; every skier has surely heard of Nagano, host to the 1998 Winter Olympics. But I’ve flown an hour north of Tokyo to play on the relatively unknown slopes of pastoral Hokkaido. Here pickup trucks lumber past ranches and dairy farms. Cool streams braid valleys pinched by silvery mountains. All of it gets absurd amounts of powder—Daisetsuzan even means “big snow mountain.” Indeed, Hokkaido could very well be the Montana of Japan.  ACCESS To take advantage of the laid-back skiing on Hokkaido, fly into New Chitose Airport (airport code: CTS), near Sapporo. All Nippon Airways offers daily flights from San Francisco, with one stop in Tokyo (anaskyweb.com... Location has a lot to do with that. Storms blow south out of Siberia, pick up moisture from the Sea of Japan, and disembowel themselves on volcanoes that leap straight out of the sea. Flakes spill from the clouds in cataclysmic, day-of-reckoning proportions. Snow banks 12 feet high line highways. Storms bury bamboo forests and entomb homes so deeply that leaping from a second-story window can be the only way out. Some ski hills here routinely log 700 inches (far more than the average North American or European resort), and the snow is so unfathomably light, with a downy 4 percent moisture content (compared with Utah’s 7) that it feels just slightly thicker than air slipping around your tips. And it all comes packaged in crisp Japanese aesthetics that infuse a ski vacation with a level of exotic sumptuousness unlike any Intrawest village ever could. Nori and I play leapfrog for nearly 2,000 vertical feet before sliding to a halt near a river that smells of sulfur. Skiers crowd the trailhead, blasting music from the backs of VW vans and playing fetch with dogs. One offers me a beer, but I have a better idea. Twenty minutes later, I’m outside the Ryounkaku inn, sweating in the onsen. The sun dips behind the mountains, and in a fantasyland-like flourish a fox curls up next to the steam for a warm snooze in the snow. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|