Shan in Japan

新年明けましておめでとうございます！
Happy New Year!

Firstly, I'd just like to say a few words about my awesome trip to Hokkaido.
On Christmas day I landed in the snow country of Asahikawa. I was greeted to clear blue skies and 10cm of fresh snow the following morning. I spent most of the morning blasting down the fast corduroy groomers until my legs were spent. Stayed in Furano area at the convenient Alpine backpackers located just 5mins from the gondola. Furano has a nice vibe about the place. The backpackers was very quiet and I think I was the only person staying there for the first few nights. I was in bed by 9pm for the first few nights getting a solid 10 hours sleep. Alas, unusual warm weather brought rain the next day. It managed to turn into wet heavy snow by late afternoon, but cancelled any hopes of plowing the powder. I missed out on 'classic' Hokkaido conditions, but still it was great to be out of Tokyo for a bit.


Met some of the local lads and few of the foreigners living there. I also got off the resort a few days, donned the avvy gear and skinned up Mt. Tokachidake with Chuck from Backcountry Powder Tracks. I thought I was fairy fit, but after 4 hours of hiking on skis, I had hardly any gas left in the tank to put in solid turns on the descent. The snow was deep but really heavy. It was the first time I had skied this kind of snow with telemark skis and really struggled. The highlight was skiing through the trees and stopping to listen to absolutely nothing in a beautiful sleeping world of whiteness. To top it off, we stopped at a free onsen on the way back. It was just a few rock pools nestled in the side of a valley surrounded by snow laden trees. After stripping off in the -10 degrees air, I was stuck between being freezing in the outside air and the onsen water being too hot to get in!

I explored another resort called Kamui Ski Links. Its about an hour from Furano and a fantastic ski area. The owner of the resort has a son who is a big mountain extreme skier, so he understands the desire for many skiers who want to ski off-piste. You can ski anywhere here and there are 'no out of bounds' signs at all. I spent the day fine tuning my telemark turns under the guidance of Nori, a telemarker with 10 years experience. On the final day I awoke to 15cm of new dry powder snow. With an early afternoon flight, I was first on the gondola line and got as many runs in as I could before running after the airport bus at 10.30am. It continues to dump several days later as I write this. So 8 out of 10 for Furano. It would surely deserve a 10 had I timed it a bit better, but it offers better snow quality than anywhere else in Japan at this early stage of the season.



So with my Hokkaido trip at a close, I arrived in Tokyo on late afternoon December 31st. Dashed home to dump my gear and catch the train out to Kori to meet up with Brad on the New Years Eve hike. After about a dozen of us gathered at his place for a countdown toast, we made our way up to Mitake Shrine. After a 2 hour hike we replenished ourselves with some hot soba noodles and paid our respects at the shrine. Though there was no snow, the temperatures felt not too disimilar to Hokkaido. Interesting to see ice flowers that are caused by moisture slowly seeping out from the stems of dead plants (from the summer) and forming intricate ice crystals. see the photo.

We made our way to Hinodeyama to wait for the first sunrise of 2007. Except for the champagne toast, I had a completely alcohol free new years eve. Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend to lower my alcohol consumption this year! The view from the top of the mountain looked out over the entire megalopolis of Tokyo, from Yokohama to the Chiba. It blows you away to see the pulsating city of lights with 25 million residents spread out below. As the sun brightened the horizon, the lights faded away and the orange disc rose to shed its warmth. There were hundreds of people gathering here. People were clapping, yelling 'banzai' and overall pretty stoked to welcome in the new year despite the freezing temperatures.


With little sleep, I soaked in a hot bath near the temple and took the easy way down on the cable car. I spent the first day with my host parents and all the extended family. New years day is much like christmas day, except with less stress involved with exchanging presents. Its just about all getting together, relaxing, eating, drinking and talking. A time to shed all worries and hit the reset button for the new year. I was really tired by the time I made it back to my apartment, with only a few hours sleep out of the last 36 hours.

I feel good about this year and hope all my friends and family have a great 2007 too. Peace and Love to you all!