Powder Pursuits

With Japan’s famous powder returning to ski resorts around the country, opportunities abound for adventure on emptier slopes.

This winter, nearly 17 meters of snow will fall on the slopes of Niseko’s resorts in southwest Hokkaido. At Nagano Prefecture’s Hakuba 47, it’ll be 12 meters of the fresh stuff. At the Gala Yuzawa resort, just a 90-minute bullet train ride from central Tokyo, 15 meters of all-natural powder will coat the trails.

Such totals (last season’s snow shortage not withstanding) are what draws hordes of powder hounds to the country each winter. Only this season, the vast majority of those international visitors won’t be allowed into Japan.

If there’s any silver lining to the coronavirus crisis that continues to grip the world, it’s that Japan, still relatively unscathed by the pandemic, offers stellar opportunities for domestic winter sports experiences, without the glut of foreign tourists.

Look and ye shall very likely find deals unheard of in pre-pandemic times. That leaves just one major issue unresolved: what are you to do with all the untouched powder you’ll find? Fortunately, four snow-obsessed Members have plenty of tips for how to spend your wintry getaways.


Image: Wolfgang Bierer

Off the Beaten Slopes
Europeans are usually no strangers to top-class ski resorts, but Wolfgang Bierer immediately noticed the difference between the slopes of his home and those of Japan when he stepped off the ski lift for the first time nearly 15 years ago.

“Of course, the big topic is snow quality,” says the German native, who has been skiing since childhood. “It’s really super powder [in Japan], which I think is just due to [the fact] that overall it’s mainly dry in the winter.”

What does this mean for an experienced skier in a country that will be without a large portion of its expected snow sports enthusiasts? A tremendous opportunity for off-piste skiing.

“I really like Shiga Kogen [in Nagano Prefecture because] it combines several ski areas together,” Bierer explains of venturing off groomed trails into untouched powder. “We could really make a whole-day round trip, which is very nice.”

Accessing Bierer’s favorite resorts is also far from a hassle. He prefers to ship his skis via one of Japan’s famously efficient (and reasonable) nationwide courier services, so there’s no need to fiddle with rental measurements or suffer through ill-fitting gear at the resort, he says.

In fact, it’s such a breeze to ski all around the country that Bierer already has multiple trips planned with his family this season—a clear sign that he’s not going to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass him by.

“It’s just awesome skiing in Japan,” he says.


Image: Niseko, Hokkaido

Day-Tripper
You don’t have to head off the groomed slopes to make the most of Japan’s famous powder. Instead, like Member and longtime skier Christa Wallington, it can be about the total experience—on and off the slopes—that really makes any trip to the mountains worthwhile.

“Norikura, Shiga Kogen and Hakuba are my main [destinations in Nagano], but there is more of a familiar atmosphere at Furano [in central Hokkaido],” says Wallington, who grew up skiing in the majestic Austrian Alps. “People are friendly. People would talk to you on the lifts. You don’t get those sorts of aspects that much in other ski resorts in Japan.”

For Wallington, who’s more accustomed to Western-style ski resort towns with bars and restaurants open long into the night, it can be tough to find a similar après-ski experience among Japan’s relatively more sedate resorts. However, the proximity of the mountains to the capital can make a day trip to world-class slopes more than feasible.

“You can get out to Gala Yuzawa [in Niigata Prefecture] and you can ski for the whole day, have an onsen [hot-spring bath] and take the shinkansen [bullet train] home for dinner,” explains Wallington. “I do that with girlfriends a few times a year.”

“To me,” she adds, “that’s so special.”

Image: Christa Wallington and Annette Harling

Best of Both Worlds
For some, nightlife conditions can be overlooked if the skiing itself is up to snuff. Eddie Guillemette counts himself among those numbers. Though raised in the relatively flat American Northeast, the Member now calls Hokkaido’s Niseko region home for a good part of every year.

“I love the winter conditions,” says Guillemette, who joined the Club this year. “It’s this weird intersection of great powder snow, not high altitude and not particularly cold, relative to, like, Toronto or many parts of North America.”

To take advantage of those uniquely perfect circumstances, Guillemette has found a similarly all-purpose activity: splitboarding. Simply, a splitboard is a snowboard that can be separated into two ski-like parts for climbing up slopes.

It’s what enabled Guillemette to trek up (with the help of guides) Hokkaido’s famous Fuji lookalike, Mount Yotei, before snowboarding through the freshest of fresh powder all the way back down.

“That was the hike of a lifetime,” says Guillemette of splitboarding up Yotei’s face thanks to a single-way skin spread over each ski. “It’s about a five-hour hike up and about 45 minutes down. Just absolutely amazing.”

A property developer in the Niseko area, Guillemette has felt the crunch from the dearth of overseas activity this year. However, he knows best that with equal crisis comes equal opportunity.

“We’re in a wave right now for sure,” he admits. “But you know, we do get inquiries and actually sold a few properties this year. The fundamentals are pretty good.”

Just like the powder.


Image: Eddie Guillemette

Unhurried Escapes
Climbing up mountains. Barreling down slopes. Snow sports often come in the most extreme of forms, but not if you ask Member Brian Burns. The California native has done the alpine game in his time, but he’s happened upon a gentler way to appreciate Japan’s wintry landscapes in recent years.

“This is exactly what snowshoeing is: it’s hiking in the snow,” he says.

Originally a snowshoer in California’s mountainous interior, Burns brought his affinity for a slower pace of winter exploration to Japan, a country more known for its alpine pursuits. Despite the change in locales, Burns always brings his snowshoes and poles along on any destination trip outside Tokyo and urges skiing and snowboarding friends alike to set aside their mounts for an altogether different way to take in their picturesque surroundings.


Image: Brian Burns

“I tell them, ‘While you’re up there, why don’t you just take one day? Rent snowshoes and just find any place and walk around,” he says. “It’s so easy to prepare for. It’s a shadow of what you’d have to do for skiing.”

Given how much pleasure Burns derives from snowshoeing, why don’t more people try it out? Marketing has something to do with it, he says. With no lifts and snowshoeing resorts on the map, so much more advertising spend goes toward alpine sports.

Until that changes, Burns is content to enjoy Japan’s wintry wilderness unspoiled by crowds.

“[Snowshoeing] is almost like a different angle of the same picture but with a totally different beauty to it,” he says. “It really does surprise me that more people don’t do it.”


Image: Niseko Hanazono Resort, Hokkaido

Norikura Winter Wonderland
A Connections-organized weekend of winter sports fun in the mountains of Nagano.
Jan 29–31