This was was a bucket-list trip....and one of those Becky and I needed to do before our legs, backs, knees, lungs, etc couldn't handle two weeks of backcountry skiing. For years we'd heard the stories and seen the pictures of the amazing powder that piles up on Hokkaido's mountains, and after a year of trip logistics, pestering friends for route info, scribbling route lines all over Google Earth, we were off to Japan with our ski buddies Andy and Mica.
We thought about checking out multiple destinations, or renting an RV, but in the end I think we were pretty happy to have had our first trip to Hokkaido based out of the Niseko area. We were able to cycle through hitting about four different major areas, each with plenty of different tours to hit. Our first day we picked a popular spot and were a little dismayed by the hordes of backcountry skiers all vying for same little slice of untracked powder....but we got into our groove and by the end of the trip we were touring all day and not seeing ANYONE :) :) :) ...and that was awesome.
We had pretty stormy weather the whole time, but got a couple calm days, which allowed us to get up high on a couple of peaks including a summit of Mt.Yotei.
linky to photo album
a little video of the skiing :)
