We are finally updating the blog after 2 days of skiing. We have been blessed so far with clear weather, great snow, and unbelievable food. Below is a timeline of our experience so far.
Friday/Saturday 1/16-1/17
Me (Julien) and Patrick K arrived in Tokyo where Ben B had landed about 30 minutes prior, we made our way to the "capsule" hotel for the night. Our next leg of travel was a short flight from Tokyo to the city of Asahikawa, on the island of Hokkaido (see map below).
Leif, Ray and Pat O were already at their hostel for the past 2 days in the mountains near Asahikawa, enjoying the onsen and skiing on Asahidake (Mount Asahi) which is the largest, highest mountain on the island of Hokkaido.
The Red pin is the city of Asahikawa
We flew into Asahikawa Airport then drove to the northern point on this map, which is the Asahidake Ropeway tram. The southern point on the map was our next stop, the Kamihoroso Ryokan.
The morning of 1/18, Ben , Patrick K and I flew into Asahikawa, rented our beautiful Toyota Hiace Long Van, and made our way up into the mountains for a some skiing with the rest of the crew.
Picking up the van, very bright outside sun reflecting off of snow, not joking
6 dudes, 1 van
It was only a 1 hour drive up to the Asahidake Ropeway. This ropeway is just a tram that takes hikers and skiers about halfway up the large volcano.
stock photo
Because this ropeway is primarily to serve summer hikers, there is some hiking and skinning to do in order to access the quality skiing. We did about a 10-15 minute boot-pack (hike) over to the next drainage south of the tram, and skied a good steep pitch with decent snow. There was a lot of wind on this day, so we headed in after this run and made our way to our hotel (another 1 hour drive, south), the Kamihoroso Ryokan (southern point on map above), where we would be spending the next 4 days skinning up from the hotel and exploring the entire area below another large volcano, Tokachidake (Mount Tokachi).
So the Kamihoroso Ryokan (Ryokan just means it is a hotel/hostel, where there are natural hot springs baths to soak in) is an unbelievable place where we are given kimonos to wear, onsens (hot springs) to soak in, and served authentic japanese food. People would spend the $110 that we are paying per night, just for the meal we get for dinner. It is fully included in our hotel price.
Our first day of skiing in the Tokachidake area was great, we were lucky to get good clear conditions so we could get our bearings and find the slopes that we wanted to ski. Although it did take a bit of time and wasted energy skinning around the area, we ended up finding a great spot and had 3 runs with excellent knee to waist deep blower snow (videos coming soon).
Beautiful Van, beautiful scenery
Leif and Pat O skinning up for another run
From left to Right, Ben, Pat K, and Ray B
Pat K
Sun starting to set on first day
-Julien
No comments:
Post a Comment