February 10, 2007 - February 16, 2007 | Niseko, Japan, | Ski

I must admit, Skiing in Japan was not really on my radar. I guess I had heard that the northern portion of the island receives impressive amounts of snow. I was invited by K2 to teach a so-called Powder Seminar together with other invited guests to increase the awarenenss of the needed avalanche education.
It seemed hard to believe that there would be any Powder skiing considering that the ski area of Niseko is located at the moderated latitued of about 45 degrees North. The base of the lift area is located at a whopping 100 meters above sealevel.
Things are lined up just right however. The great westerly winds bindg ample cold air from the Russian mainland. This air then loads up with moisture over the Sea of Japan before it hits the mountains on the West Coast of Hokkaido. (This is the name of the north Island region). Niseko is located a couple hours by bus north and west of Sapporo. All things combined, the climate is perfect to produce reliable powder in copious amounts (they claim 500 to 600 inches per year....)
I tend to take info with a grain of salt, but I was certainly impressed, when I saw the solid 2 meter base at the village of Niseko (remember now, this is a sealevel and 45 degrees northern latitude!!).
Tim Petrick from K2 and myself flew from Seattle to Tokyo, then on to Sapporo and took the bus from there to Niseko. This can all be accomplished in about 20 hours door to door, but one does loose just about one full day on the way there due to the international dateline.
Sure enough, the snowpack was large. 2 meters at the bottom and about 3.5 meters at the top of the area. The area boosts about 3300 feet of vertical and on a rare sunny day, you can actually see the sea of Japan.
The local population is very friendly, but without the help from our friends from Nisekoharmonyresorts.com , communication would have been a bit tough.
None of this matters once you are skiing. It had snowed a couple of feet the day before and the temperature hung in the single digits at mid mountain.
Enough said, the skiing through the birch forests was outstanding. The terrain is generally friendly (maybe like Mount Bachelor in Oregon), and the snowclimate would most likely have to be labeled something like subarctic maritime... In other words, tons of light snow.

The first day of skiing was followed by a more serious meeting of the Japanese skiing minds. The current state of avalanche safety awareness and education is in the formative state and improving this was the point of the get together. It was great to meet Japanese legends like Mr. Miura (the man who skied / parachuted off Mount Everest in the seventies.
There is a lot of work ahead for the Japanese ski industry to get ski areas ready for lift accessed adventure skiing, but I am certain that the Japanese will tackle this issue with their inherent diligence and patience. We are certain that the standard of awarness will change dramatically over the next few years.
Several hotels in Niseko are ski in and ski out hotels, there are plenty of good restaurants to sample local food and the still moderate pricing should make Niseko a tempting alternative for a family ski vacation and of for some great lift accessed ski touring.
The ski area has a great website: www.skihanazono.com
So we skied a couple more days in Niseko, experienced the bus ride from hell back to Sapporo (it took 9 instead of 2 hours due to a big storm we decided to drive into...), and checked out Tokyo for day.

Who'd thunk it? Blower pow in Japan.