Hokkaido: the Northern Island of Japan

Two weekends ago I had the chance to experience Japan's most prized mountain area, Hokkaido. Hokkaido is known for some of the lightest powder snow on the planet and phenomenal tree runs. It is also home to Sapporo, the capital and fourth largest city in Japan. We took a plane from Tokyo's Heneda airport (the intra-Japan airport) to Sapporo. On our walk to the hotel in Sapporo, I was taken by how much snow was around. The streets are literally lined with snow, the sides of the road have 8-12 foot snow drifts that have been pushed to the side of the road to clear the road ways. In fact, on the streets the city places boxes with salt bags that the public is free to spread around if a spot is too icy. But the snow does not phase the locals: everyone goes out like it's 65 degrees and sunny; women are walking on 3in of snow and ice with heels and think nothing of it. I guess when people live in an area that gets pounded with snow for six months of the year they tend to adapt. Sapporo is known for it's beer, snow, and ramen noodles - they invented ramen in Sapporo and even have a place called "Ramen Alley" where one can get ramen cooked just about any way possible. This isn't your standard Cup-o-Noodle soup. Ramen (or chashumen as they call it here) is pretty much a staple food in Japan. One can find a Ramen restaurant pretty much anywhere in Japan. The hotel here was not quite as fancy as the one we stayed at in Nigata, but it was still quite nice and had a sento (faux hot spring - more like a massive hot tub). The first day of our trip was spent at Teine, a local mountain in Sapporo. This mountain was pretty small but it did have a ferris wheel on it, and we could see the ocean from the peaks. The tree runs here were nice and filled with about 2 ft of powder, but the trees were pretty close together and there was quite a bit of underbrush making for slow tree riding. It's pretty interesting how foreigner's go skiing here. We bought a package from the train company, which included our train ticket, ski bus ticket, lift ticket, and a discount ticket for renting equipment. People here buy an entire package here from the train company that can include hotels, rental cars, and pretty much anything else one might need. The second day in Hokkaido was spent at Rusutsu, which is touted (rightfully so) as the best lift-served mountain resort in all of Japan. This resort did not let us down. The tree runs were wide open and the snow was light enough to blow right out of my hands. The views from the top were breath taking and riding around on this mountain was incredible. We did not see another American on the mountain and only saw two Austrailians who were in the "semi-backcountry" with us. Semi-backcountry is how the mountain refers to it's non-groomed runs that are still in bounds. Traditional backcountry skiing is prohibited. Finally, before leaving Sapporo, I was able to see most of the ice sculptures that were erected for the 59th annual snow festival.

Pictures from Tiene:



Pictures from Rusutsu:



Pictures from the Sapporo Snow Festival: