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"If it's too steep, you are too old."
Preparation for this trip started early 2011 when I returned with my family from Japan. I had been to Hakuba resort with my family and I knew that a boy’s trip was inevitable. It took a further 5 years to pull off the trip. Time does not wait for our fickle imagination and the trip fell through year after year. Until Will’s fiftieth birthday came along and four players tentatively signed up and another year past before the final team came together: Camron, Dave, Jason, Roman with the unexpected edition of Tom and our Japanese back-country snowboarder Sanshiro.
We left Sydney on a direct flight to Haneda airport in Tokyo on Thursday 4 February 2016 for a full 11 days of skiing with a couple of days in Tokyo thrown in for good measure until 18 Feb. From Haneda our 5 hour shuttle bus drove us straight to Hakuba village and our Alpine Chalet near the popular Echoland district. From there on the pattern was pretty routine: get up early ski the whole day in one of the many resorts, hit the nearest hot spring, pig out at the best restaurant available with bucket loads of sushi, sashimi, sukiyaki, shabushabu, yakitori , sake and beer until we collapse into our beds at night. Get up and repeat. This pattern latest for 9 days straight and thankfully day 10 it rained and gave us an excuse to rest but we went back for one more day on day eleven before leaving for Tokyo.
"if skiing was easy, it would be called snowboarding"
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Roman |
Jason |
Dave |
Cam |
The first adventure started at the Goryu resort when naughty Dave jumped one of the many ‘keep out’ warning signs and skied straight into the arms of the local ski-patrol. After much arguing his lift pass was confiscated and Cam and Roman spotted his disappointment from the lift above. We laughed our heads off and wondered how long it would take him to walk back. Sucked in! Five minutes later Cam discovered a deep powder tree run surrounded by No-Entry sings and persuaded poor innocent Roman to join him. I got stuck in the deep powder between the trees when another ski-patrol spotten my predicament in the out of bounds area. We were gracefully escorted down the mountains with a rear and front guard and given a naught boys talk. Needless to say that our lift passes were confiscated and that made 3 out of 4 naughty boys. Jason was the only surviving member with a valid lift pass left and skied to his heart content till the end of day. Goryu was the only place where the out of bound patrols were strictly enforced, every other resort had no problem with putting yourself in harm’s way, and that’ is exactly where we went next……
The snow base in Nagano was ‘only’ a couple of meters thick so on day four the heavens opened up and we got our big dump which lasted the better part of 48 hours and added another meter for us to frolic in. Cam and Dave chose Cortina, which was famous for its out-of-bounds tree runs and it did not disappoint. Dave almost managed to get us lost in the back-country somewhere but got us to the lunch break in one piece. The snow storm never relented and the fine powder was softer than any imaginable foam pit.
Just after the first day of the big dump Dave and Cam got up early to enjoy the big powder that fell throughout the night. Jason and Roman slept in and caught up later. If I remember correctly it was Roman and Cam’s idea (not sure who is to blame for this one?) to check out a tree run that would reconnect with the groomed slope on the bottom. Bad idea. We both went into the forest from two different angles and got badly stuck in the deepest snow I have ever seen. Cam’s helmet GoPro was knocked off his helmet and he stopped in the wrong place. I went too far down the hill and discovered that I had to climb up about 5 meters. When I took off my skies I immediately sank down up to my neck into the snow. There was nothing to hold onto and any attempt to move forward was fruitless. There was no purchase anywhere and I had to use my skies as anchors to pull me along. I had to collect myself and stay focused there was complete silence and nobody was around. I laboured hard to gain one meter by building little steps of compressed snow with my knees. It was exhausting and slow. It was all about staying focused and working slow and methodically, do not panic. Eventually I reached a little sapling sprouting out of the ground and used that as a platform to get my skies back on. That also took a very long time. With my skies back on the progress became a little easier but I still started to sink in past my knees in the soft powder. I had about 50 meters to go before I reached the groomed runs. I was exhausted and furious thinking that Dave and Cam were enjoying some nice runs while I had struggled for hours. I took the next lift up and noticed two lonely figures from the lift working their way laboriously along the same trail I had just come out off. Cam and Dave were still in the forest and after searching for the missing GoPro gave up and went through the same trap I had just escaped. I started to smile again.
Cam went to the shop and bought another GoPro!
Cam etched in Snow
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Above the Clouds
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With Japanese Guides
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Cortina Snow |
Bathtub bliss |
Cam contemplating the drop |
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Japanese Pub Night |
The waterfall |
Backcountry skiing |
Dave was also to blame for our first back-country exploration on the day before the big dump hit us. He kept nagging us about dropping of the back into no-mans-land, while I desperately tried to protect Cam from the hidden dangers lurking off-piste. Only after he called us “mushi” one too many times did we give in and hurled ourselves into the unknown! To his credit it was probably one of the best runs of the trip with deep powder and only a single trace disappearing into the valleys below. Dave started it all and there was no going back, once we had caught the back-country bug the groomed resort slopes held little appeal. It all changed to another level when we ran into Sanshiro, who would become our local back-country guide and took us to a new extreme level.
On the day Dave signed up for his back-country powder tour with Rhythm Sport, it was time for Cam’s first snow-shoe climbing expedition. We went to the highest point of the resort, changed into alpine touring skies with furs and snow-shoes and started walking up the exposed ridge disappearing high above the resort. After walking up for about one hour the ground flattened and we reached our first peak with panoramic views of Mount Shirouma (白馬) and the surrounding alpine vista. I was talking to a Japanese photographer when a snowboarder approached me and asked what we were doing up there? His name was Sanshiro (written with the same characters (三四郎) as the famous novel by the Japanese writer NatsumeSōseki, and he was also the local expert on back-country skiing. He would volunteer as our guide for the next couple of days. For the first run with us he took Cam and I straight down from the ridge through deep powder to a drop of point into a steep funnel. The top of the funnel had a deep fissure running through it suggesting avalanche danger but Sanshiro launched straight into it. Cam and I looked at each other for a while before following him down. What followed was our first epic when Roman lost his ski in the deep snow. We dug through the waist deep snow for what seemed like hours but without any luck. Strapping on one snowshoe and one ski we descended the gully only to find the ski waiting at the bottom for us? Meanwhile Sanshiro had dutifully waited for us thinking we were having fun building snow castles up there. We continued the run through trees and steep snowfields until we emerged by a river crossing and a small mountain path that would lead us back to a road. From there a taxi took us straight back to the resort. This was probably our hairiest run but things would get a lot better.
"Don't eat the yellow snow!"
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| Jason and Roman |
Man products |
Jason in it |
Next day we met Sanshiro early and the back-country skiing continues. While Roman gave up on his skies (the bindings kept releasing in the deep powder) and borrowed a new pair of powder skies from Rhythm Sports next to the International (Kokusai) slope, Cam and Dave completed their first off-piste run with Sanshiro. A second run together would confirm that we were ready for something a little bigger! Once again Sanshiro was keen and our plea for early lunch fell on deaf ears. So we took the highest lift and geared up for an assault on the ridge above the resort. Jason had begun his climb of the Happo-One ridge early in the morning and was aiming to summit Mount Karamatsudake (唐松岳) at 2696 meters. He was well equipped with snowshoes and crampons and was surprised when he ran into us lower down the mountain after his successful climb. We were still scrambling around the exposed ridge with our skies and snowboards several hundred meters below the summit and started to beg for mercy. But Sanshiro just wanted to go higher so we bid farewell to Jason and continued our ascent as storm clouds began to gather around us. I think you can guess were this is heading….
"leave no turn unstoned"
Another hour of climbing and we have had enough, the heavy packs, steep incline and no lunch were taking their toll and I politely suggested to find a nice point to begin our ‘safe’ descent. The weather was not looking great and we were a long way up. What followed was probably one of the best alpine touring descents I have ever been on. Down a steep valley into a narrow funnel that wound its way down the mountains via steep powder-fields past rocky outcrops and waterfalls (scary) all the way to yet another river crossing and a long way out back to our taxi ride. It had been a big day and the hot spring never felt better.
The forecast for day ten was rain and after nine days of skiing straight we loved the idea of a rest day. Sanshiro continued to ski and kept texting us but we went on an hot spring safari that nearly ended in tragedy after our first choice was closed. We just kept walking to the next one and the rest day was no more. Day 11 was our last day with every possible weather pattern in a single day, from rain in the morning to high winds and sun. Dave had left for Beirut, Jason went to see the snow monkeys and Cam and I decided to go skiing one more day. We had a plan in the back of our mind – somewhere on the mountain, hidden deep below the snow, there was a GoPro waiting to be found…
Exhausted Tokyo welcomed us into her tantalising arms, grand hotels with rooftop spas, endless sushi trains, barsand nightlife, and not to forget climbing gyms. But what happens in Tokyo stays in Tokyo...
"I've used up all my sick days, so I called in dead"
Resorts visited:
HakubaHappo-One 白馬八方尾根 Download Hakuba Resort Map
Goryu 白馬五竜スキー場
Hakuba 47 Hakuba47ウィンタースポーツパーク
Cortina 白馬コルチナスキー場
Hot springs Visited:
HappoOnsen 白馬八方温泉
Shobei no Yu (Mominoki Hotel)
Echoland no Yu
Kurashita no Yu (was closed when we got there so we went to:
Iwatake no Yu
Mimizuku no Yu
Daiichi Sato no Yu (in the Hotel near the massage parlor!)
APA Hotel Rooftop Hotspring
Here is a great guide of hotsprings in Hakuba Mura: http://www.hakubatourism.jp/hotsprings/
Roman
22 February 2016
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