Zen and the Art of Hokkaido Powder
Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, truly is a magical place. It really has it all: world famous seafood and ramen, beautiful lakes, mountains, and beaches, wonderful people, over 250 onsen (hot springs), metres of reliable powder snow on the planet, and one hilarious mascot. “Marimokkori” takes on the anthropomorphic form of the strange Marimo, a regionally celebrated algae ball that develops in Hokkaido’s lakes. Passing by the obvious, easily “cutifiable”, local mascot options: bears, deer, foxes, pikas, or even the world famous Hokkaido scallop, the decision was made, not only to select an obscure piece of algae to represent the prefecture, but to endow it with… notable prowess.
http://www.myjapanesewife.com/what-is-marimokkori-anyway/
When traveling in Japan, you spend a lot of time observing things that leave you questioning: are they in on the joke, or are our cultures just so distinct that this is just business as usual? You also repeatedly find yourself comparing our relatively brutish and unrefined ways with their kind, polite, thoughtful, and civilized nature. With pristine bathrooms, quiet public transit, respectful strangers, maybe sometimes you just need to put anthropomorphized genitals on some algae to spice things up a bit?
We flew into Sapporo from Osaka, met by a very enthusiastic waving Narihito at the airport, who picked us up and took us to his home where our rental RV was waiting for us. For whatever reason, we had decided to bring the cramped living space of Tokyo on the road with us north to Japan’s most spacious region. And so, four of us piled ourselves, 6 snow/splitboards, and all our gear into a cute Japanese RV, to explore Northeastern Hokkaido.
Narihito is a retired snowboard instructor from various Hokkaido resorts, who decided to buy an RV to rent out seasonally when he wanted to move away from the ski bum lifestyle. Unfortunately, as he described it, the RV “came with COVID”, and so his entrance to the tourism industry was hindered for a time.
Being used to a flexible lifestyle as a ski bum, he simply moved into the RV and traveled around exploring every square inch of his native island, building up incredible documentation of the island’s sites, sounds, and ubiquitous rest areas. Here is his awesome site.
He provided a great overview of his favourite hills, some guidance on driving the RV (“if you go up THIS winding mountain road, make sure you choose your BEST driver”), along with his recommendation and even a sample glass of his pick for local value whiskey (Nikka Black).
We waved goodbye to this local legend, and on his recommendation, headed to a Wagyu BBQ place by his house on the way out of town. $30 CAD each included a mix of Wagyu strips, a thick tenderloin, grilled veggies and mushrooms, 2 Korean bibimbops, kimchi pickles, a large salad, and beers. And that Wagyu was every bit as wonderful as its stout reputation.
After that, we pushed on into the night in rather dicey driving conditions across the city of Sapporo to our first overnight rest area experience. It was -5 and lightly snowing, and the excitement of our first taste of Hokkaido ski culture was high.
The next day, we rolled into “small in size, big on vibe” Kamui Ski Links . I had found it only a few nights previously on the Powderhounds website, and looked like a great intro to Hokkaido resorts, and happened to make a convenient first stop on a loop of the Northeastern ski hills from Sapporo. It was exactly what we were hoping for: $35 lift tickets, knee deep powder, no lift lines, super cute small ski hill vibe with mostly all local Japanese, and a great backside lift that boasted inbounds low angle tree runs continuously refilled all day by the constant descent of imported Siberian freshies. And of course, high quality on hill ramen in the cafeteria to warm the body and soul.
After skiing til close, we pushed on to Hokkaido’s second largest city, Asahidawa, for a soak at a terrific onsen, and a delicious sushi dinner. From our rest stop home for the night, in an urban part of the city, we remarked how incredibly clean and safe it felt when we went for a late after dinner walk. I don’t think there is an urban public rest area in North America where anyone would leave commenting on how safe and clean it was.
Of course, the heated seats on the Japanese bidet toilets really make the experience quite civilized.
The next day, we drove through beautiful hilly countryside under the near constant light snowfall, to the largest resort in the region, Furano. It definitely felt like a different world from Kamui, waiting in a long line to buy tickets in the morning surrounded by vacationing Australian families. But the legend of Hokkaido lived on, and we had an awesome day exploring the resort hitting lots of great inbound tree runs, a decent bowl of ramen for lunch, and one slackcountry run to finish the day that gave us a good taste for some more consistent untracked goods. Though the main gondola line was a bit longer (`10 minute wait), the upper mountain lifts were ski on with no waits.
We hit up a terrific Okonimiyaki restaurant that night, where the staff were as much of a highlight as the food (which was also terrific). We ended up picking the wrong parking lot to sleep in, as we got a visceral appreciation for how incredibly active the snow plowing is in Hokkaido, as it felt we listened to them scraping all around us for the entire night.
The next day, we decided to bust out the touring gear and work off some of the constant stream of convenience store snacks and rich Japanese cuisine. It ended up being fortuitous timing, as the sun came out and we had fantastic conditions for a walk in the Hokkaido mountains. The day was everything I had dreamed about for Japan skiing, and even though lift access pow hunting is easy pickings here, you just can’t beat a walk on skis in a beautiful forest. We had a great 3 laps of the Furano backside before a long and at times spicy creek drainage ski out to valley bottom.
With snowboarding this good, I can definitely relate to Marimokkori’s constant… excitement.
That evening, we decided to drive south to complete a loop of the area back to Sapporo, and tried to find a spot for an onsen and dinner along a beautiful lake south of Furano, but everything was closed. You definitely cannot rely on Google Maps for business hours in Japan. We continued on and ended up in a small town of Minamifurano, where we had a silly dinner at a tiny homestead restaurant called Svalbard (no actual relation to the Norweigen island, they just read about it in a book and thought it was cool!), with a puppy and super cute owners. This was a very small town, so the other two parties at the restaurant and owners all knew each other, and we had fun attempting to connect through a significant language barrier.
Popular ice fishing lake
The crew at Tomamu
The next stop was Tomamu, which you could describe as the 3rd flavour of Japanese ski hill. Kamui represented the small, undeveloped vibe, Furano was the larger resort adjacent to an existing town, and Tomamu is the modern purpose built family oriented Japanese ski resort, complete with giant wave pool, Club Med, and many different types of tourist activities like an Ice Village, snow cat rides, etc. It was definitely worth the visit, as like many things in Japan, sometimes it’s just about seeing the grand spectacle of it all.
We decided to keep rolling as Tomamu was quite overpriced for pretty much everything except their $10 single ride lift ticket. We drove 30 minutes down the road to a wonderful onsen (Shimukappu Yunosawa) to freshen up. The hot spring was extra hot, the cold plunge extra cold, and the tiny sauna extra cozy, with only a couple others there, including a local who has splitboarded around much of the area, and had some great advice for Furano side country for the next time we’re back.
We ended up in a small village of Shimukappu where we finally struck out on finding an open restaurant, and so we just enjoyed a hilarious but sub-par convenience store dinner of microwaved noodle bowls, a plastic wrapped cheeseburger (Ali dared me to try it), and various other strange snacks and bits and bites. A quirky finish to RV life on this phase of the trip, as the next day, we roll back into Sapporo to return the RV, and begin the final phase of our trip at our Airbnb in Niseko.
Back in Sapporo, we swapped vehicles, bidding farewell to the RV and wonderful Narihito and embraced a much more maneuverable Delica 4x minivan. We thoroughly enjoyed the RV, but the driving in wintery conditions was definitely on the spicy side for much of the trip. The major freeways are salted and cleared, but the side and country roads were not, leaving hard packed roads of snow and ice to navigate, leading to a rather active driving experience.
The Delica was generally more than ready for the challenge, though later on we would find out that in the most extreme of winter driving conditions that Siberia can throw at you, things get very sketchy regardless of vehicle choice.
We stopped for terrific sushi at a family run business running since the 1940s, with a multi-generational staff of the son currently working as the chef, and the adorable elderly Mum helping clear plates and serve.
After that, we drove south along the Hokkaido coast towards Niseko, with a stop at the bear sanctuary; which was an as expected ridiculous Japan experience. The Japanese brown bear is friggin’ enormous! The “human cage” where the male bears come to receive food they are fed by tourists all day was wild, the bear “athletics” performance was a bit of a letdown as I was expecting juggling and trapeze, and we don’t even really know what was happening with the duck race…
Onwards to niseko and our Airbnb, and you immediately knew we had entered the snowy part of Hokkaido! Driving through 3 meter snow banks in a blizzard to arrive at out relatively palatial abode, we had just enough time to unpack before heading to pick up the rest of our crew, Neal and Limor, who had just flown over from California.
We popped out for a confusing but delicious izakaya experience, hit a convenience store for snacks and whiskey, and headed home for an early night to prep for an early start on our first taste of the Niseko United ski area.
Niseko United is a collection of 4 interconnected hills that have individual lift passes, or a combined united pass. They all have somewhat different characters, from the more basic to the comically opulent.
Our first day was at the less developed Annipurni, which has more of a westerly aspect and was getting absolutely hammered by wind. So much that the main gondola was not forecasted to open, but we made the call to stick it out and ride some very cold lifts and avoid the crowds. The day was great and we found some solid stashes, in between nearly freezing to death, and learning some hard lessons about how flat terrain can be at Japanese ski hills when there is a meter of fresh snow.
We wanted to take advantage of our spacious kitchen, so we went to a large grocery in neighbouring Kutchan to pick up terrific value sashimi, wagyu beef, local Hokkaido scallops and rice, and 7 kinds of various mushrooms, to make some tasty noms.
We tried out Hanazono next, representing a more high end resort side of Niseko, complete with a Luis Vuitton Mongolian hut at the base, heated six seater chairs, and some longer lines. Some pow stashes were found though, and the remote Onsen we checked out that was actually a bit too hot felt nice on the body that was starting to feel so many days on the board.
Fortunately we were looking at another 20cms overnight, as our day at Niseko Village was the kind of resort ski day you dream of. Riding the main gondola from opening to close, with a delicious lunch at an Italian themed restaurant at a local dairy farm, each run was fantastic powder tree skiiing. The Gate 11 zone and the adjacent “Superstition” area was an incredible area of open tree skiing descending into a lower gully that had freshies all day.
The system of “gates” adopted by the main Japanese ski resorts is a way for the culture of slackcountry rope ducking typical of pow hunters to mesh with the strict rule abiding culture of this beautiful nation. By providing a dedicated access point, with information about recommended avalanche safety precautions, while keeping some level of enforcement for the classic rope ducking elsewhere, you have given the shredders what they want (access to the goods), while still providing a level of control over the less informed to get themselves into trouble in the wrong spot.
It’s a smart system, and seems to work fairly well. Technically, you’re supposed to have typical avalanche gear (beacon/probe/shovel) to enter these zones, but enforcement there is non-existent and definitely looked more like a suggestion. Pretty much all of the terrain we accessed was not actually avalanche terrain, so that is fine, but the upper alpine gates on Niseko should definitely be taken seriously, judging by the terrain we could see.
Iconic Mount Yotei towers over the Niseko area
Giles and I were keen to spend a bit of time walking on skiis, so while the rest of the crew took a rest day, we checked out the classic Niseko backcountry zone of Nito, adjacent to our much-to-hot hot spring experience from a few days prior. Fortunately, there is a wealth of info about the backcountry skiing options in the area, so we picked a fairly popular one to ensure we weren’t the only ones around, and headed off. Nito starts literally at the end of the road. Snow plows end their work on Hokkaido’s own Route 66 just past a military training base at an abandoned ski hill, and adjacent Yumoto onsen. Leaving a snow covered snaking trail providing simple access into the Niseko area back ranges.
Again, luck was on our side for conditions, as although the forecast had us expecting low vis but quality deep tree skiing, we were treated to clear skies and the opportunity to ascend Nitonupuri, and take in the incredible views from the North Japan Sea to the Tsugaru Straight separating Hokkaido from Honshu. The riding was phenomenal as we lapped the incredible pitched treed slopes that every powder aficionado that has seen a Hokkaido ski film segment has fantasized over.
We watched this local woman struggle up the skin track in snow shoes with this plastic toboggan on her back. I wish we got to see her on the way down!
We finished this leg of the trip with a fun cruisy half day back at Annupri with a running gondola, with a fun apres celebration on our last day with Neal and Limor. We decided to cook up another feast at home, heading back to the Kutchan grocery for thick Wagyu steak, snow crab, tuna sashimi, and other delicious random Japanese goodies.
All in all, even the crowd averse Giles agreed that Niseko was well worth the visit. It now has a reputation for being crowded, and we definitely could see signs of that, but nothing compares to our home hill of Whistler. In fact, during our time in Niseko, the crowds were essentially a non-issue, with the exception of when we foolishly tried to venture into the main town of Hirafu for apres and got frustrated by long lines for a quirky bar in a vending machine, and likely the busiest convenience store in all of Japan.
At the hill, the lift lines for chairs were often non-existent, the gondolas pretty quick <10 minute waits at most, and if powder is what you’re looking for, as long as the conditions are typical Hokkaido, you will not be disappointed. Even on our last day at Annapuri, when it hadn’t really snowed much the past couple days, we were finding easy access stashes tucked away in the trees through Gates 8.
We found great food wherever we went, though it is likely better to make reservations beforehand, over the phone. Mary had made our sole reservation via email, and when we showed up they had no record of it, which lead to an uncomfortable stand off before they seated us anyways. The backcountry opportunities are plentiful. There is a good mix of accommodation options, and we found our Airbnb townhouse to be ideal for our stay, and reasonably priced.
It was an absolute treat to get to spend some quality time with Neal and Limor, with tons of laughs, and the usual smorgasbord of quality food and drink and silliness, with dirty Grandma jokes from Neal kept to a minimum, I assume out of respect for the polite Japanese culture.
Hokkaido lived up to all the hype and then some, and we are so excited to return. If you enjoy skiing or snowboarding, great food, hot springs, and strange and wonderful culture, a trip to Japan’s north island will definitely leave you looking like gleeful Marimokkori every single day.