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Ski Japanese Volcanoes Print E-mail
Page 4 of 4


japan Niseko-based Taro Tomai crafts custom bamboo snowboards
Niseko-based Taro Tomai crafts custom bamboo snowboards
WHEN STORMS COME ROLLING IN, the best place to be in Hokkaido is arguably Furano, a rural outpost, where some of the island’s highest peaks wring even drier flakes from the clouds. There’s a small ski area with the country’s fastest tram, but if Hokkaido is Japan’s Montana, then Furano is its Bozeman. Here, the heart and soul of the place stretches beyond the lifts into the backcountry, where hot springs burble under serrated peaks and traditional lodges bathe in an endless sky. The morning after my stay in Otaru, I take a train to Furano, where I meet Nori, who has agreed to show me that backcountry.

We roll out, and as we slip past silos and tractor dealers, Nori explains how he was a typical Japanese electronics guy who slaved away over circuitry for phone companies before realizing he liked being in the mountains more. So he quit, moved north to the snow, and took a job as a taxi driver so he could ski. Eventually, when he was already in his late thirties, he started working toward his guiding credentials and got hired by a backcountry skiing outfit in Furano called Hokkaido Powder Guides. “Old people work their whole lives for one company,” Nori says. “Young people are changing that.”

We drive to the north end of the national park, past hillsides draped in sasa bamboo, to reach the base of 7,513-foot Asahi Dake, another active volcano you can ski. Wind scours the peak in spots, glazing rhododendrons with rime. Japanese stone pines hang in a thick, swirling fog.

Nori and I hurry into a tram that whisks us up 1,640 vertical feet to a station at about 5,250 feet. Normally, we could tour around Asahi Dake and link up any number of rope tows for a fine mix of backcountry and lift-accessed touring. But today the fog is too thick. Instead, we skin up to Sugataminoike, a lake with a half-dozen fumaroles hissing steam. Having lived in Oregon, I’m used to skiing on volcanoes, but the notes escaping from this hellish pipe organ are far more impressive than anything I’ve heard back home.

Skiing Japan's North
map of Hokkaido 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...
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We spend the rest of the day working our way down to the van, with an afternoon of route finding and adventure skiing. We play in gullies and, when the fog clears, open it up on gentle sections. At the bottom, we warm up over tea. “Maybe better weather tomorrow,” Nori says apologetically, as if the fog is his fault.

It doesn’t matter. In Japan, bad weather means great soaking.

The gift of travel
Nori drops me off down the road at the La Vista Hotel, and I immediately head downstairs to find one of the loveliest onsens yet. The changing rooms are stocked with colognes, hair tonics, and silky shaving cream. Outside, a river-rock pool with stone benches sits next to three cedar-lined tubs. I swear to myself right there that one day my house is going to have a Japanese-style bathroom, complete with little cedar buckets and a wardrobe of yukatas.

I sit in the tubs till the sky turns purple with dusk and another storm rolls in. Soon the hemlocks are heavy with fresh snow. Long shadows fill the forest as orange lanterns wink in the distance. I lie still and listen to the wet brush of snowflakes slipping through the trees.


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