Arrived at Sahoro and skied first day today. Was pleasantly surprised despite no new snow since Tuesday was lots of fun untouched pow in the trees. What wasn’t so fun was some of the half arsed sasa clearing which has left lots of stumps on some of the actual runs. Would rather they left the whole bush easier to dodge. Sahoro resort hotel is awesomely Japanese and great bluebird day. Quiet and great snow conditions so completely pumped. Too cold -17C plus wind chill for too many photos
Hi guys, looking at possibly squeezing in a last minute trip to either Furano or Kiroro on the 17/2-24/2, any budget accommodation idea? And can someone comment on the condition of both resort? I've seen the daily update from both official channel, both had reasonable about of false lately and had a decent base.
Friday 7th another lovely day at Sahoro. Sunny with small snow flake periods. Despite no new snow reported there was 2-5cm up top and still lots of untouched powder through the trees. It’s a really great resort if you like riding powder with no-one around and don’t mind tight trees. Just have to avoid club med army at the gondola. Here is the missus enjoying the trees
Anyone been over to Kamui recently? Looking at a few days trips from Furano this week and weighing up Kamui and Tomamu.
Spectacular bluebird at Furano today. Wonderful views but a very crisp -17C and was -30C at 6am . Pistes are in fantastic condition. Still some nice stashes offpiste and through the gates but much harder to find as most areas tracked out. Great day though even tracked out pow was skiing nicely. Busy on the gondolas but if you could brave the cold, chairs were empty. Great ramen for lunch next to ropeway at Furano zone warmed me right up
We're visiting Furano in a week or so. My son is already obsessed with the ropeway (he's been looking at pictures and videos online, building lego ropeways etc). Is anyone able to let me know the difficulty level of the Link Run that you need to ski to get back from the Furano zone (where the ropeway is) to the Kitanomine Zone (where we are staying)? It is on the trail map as a red but in my previous experience of Japan this can cover a wide variety of trail types and steepness. Also wondered if it's groomed or not? He's a competent skier but he's very young and he's going to be gutted if he can't get over and back to the ropeway! He skis greens and blues in Australia (eg Wombat, Summit etc at Buller). I just want to be able to manage his expectations if access to the ropeway's going to be limited for him! Worst case is there a bus at the base linking the two zones?
It's a pretty solidly groomed run, being Japan. It does not tend to get (or it's not allowed to get) mogulled in my experience. The last section looks steepish if you are still a only green run skier but it's not long and got enough width to tootle carefully down with wide pizza turns if you have too. It's no worse than most Oz Blues and generally better. Most people have more issue with holding speed on the approach from Furano Zone which is slightly uphill.
Thanks for the info, that sounds fine. We'll keep building the lego ropeways in the living room in the meantime then!
Great day at Kamui. What a little gem of a resort. Nice long groomers, lots of open trees and easy to access in-bounds powder. Pretty tracked out but still some fresh with traverses and a little bit of out of resort. Nice views, friendly staff and despite there being people everywhere due to public holiday actually no queues for lifts. I would love to come on a powder day.
What skifree said. Also, the link LIFT that takes you over to the Furano Zone is a steep open pair lift that travels over a windy section of the mountain. Be sure to bundle up!
I love Kamui. Last powder day I had there two years ago, all the guides took their groups to the gates, and we just skied either side of the gondola, trees and piste. Deep powder with only a couple of other riders leaving tracks. Plus it has that nice small local resort feel, mum, dad , the kids and uncle as a race coach.
Was at Tomamu today. Blowing a gale at the top and visibility poor for the top 200m or so but still an enjoyable day. Felt a little like a school boy being signed in for off-piste skiing but system worked well. Still some nice powder in the trees and Untracked lines to be had although temperatures and wind have got to a lot of it. Very quiet, no lift queues. Pistes in good condition although the odd bare or scraped area starting to appear
This only thing holding me back from Kamui is the absence of accommodations at or around the resort. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) If I stay in Asahikawa and don't hire a car, how frequent is the shuttle bus running between the city and the resort?
We are looking at Tomamu for a week or so next year. Family of solid intermediates. Is there enough slope variation to stay fun for a week without heading off piste? We are all skiing blues and easy blacks in Canada/ US but probably not enough skills yet to head off the beaten track.
When I was there about three years ago it only ran twice in the morning and returned twice in the afternoon if I recall correctly.
I would say no but if you can do day trips to sahoro and Furano as wel then yes. Japanese resorts are very small if you are used to large Canadian, US or European piste skiing.
Furano was spring skiing goodness today. Yes very warm at +5C at the top but moguls were soft, pistes remained nice and offpiste was soft and forgiving. Blue skies and actually an awesome days skiing. So quiet apart from dodging the Japanese army crashed everywhere over the slopes. Just so weird being so hot today after being -28C a few days ago
Does anyone have a recommendation on which website has the most accurate snow forecast for Japanese resort
Have a look at the weather thread for Japan on this forum it’s about the best for predicting a little in advance. Snow forecast is generally spot on for temperature but is often very wrong on snowfall. https://www.accuweather.com/en/jp/furano-shi/217847/daily-weather-forecast/217847 Is also useful. I generally use 2-3 and do a cross reference
weather thread for this winter is here btw: https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/t...-2019-2020-weather.86375/page-30#post-4181927 (totally different corner of the forum so I thought I’d post a link)
Just arrived in the middle of a mini snow storm here in Furano...should have some freshie tomorrow morning
Thanks to everyone for tips on the link run. Mr 3 conquered it on day one so all good. He got his dream to ride the ropeway multiple times but has now settled on the other gondola as his favourite, although it seems to be closed more than it's open to be honest. After being held back by needing to ski with Mr 3 for the first three days Little Miss 6 got her chance to shed the annoying little bruv this morning and have a bit more fun. There was maybe 5cm of fresh snow at the base and more like 10cm higher up. Snow was Aussie pow mostly so temps can't be that low. The gondola, of course, was not running so we were limited to the bottom two lifts and the link lift. Fun was still had for the first few hours. We don't venture too far off piste as we don't know the resort so I can't compete with some of the awesome pics others have posted up on this thread! One day maybe Thinking of going to Kamui on Tuesday. Weather looks sunny so could be fun to try some new trails.
Managed to get out with the boards yesterday afternoon after we skied in the morning. By that stage it was blizzardlike with only the bottom lift running but there was some good fun to be had and old lines just filling in a lot of the time. We found a few nice little runs that ski patrol had opened up off the side of the main drag that very few other people seemed to either know about or be bothered with. These were terrific and provided plenty of entertainment for a few hours. Retired to the Chateau Naturwald at about 3pm and then I went out solo for night skiing. Trying to improve my powder skiing (which is very ordinary as I only switched to skiing a couple of years ago). Again, the runs were filling in nicely due to the wind blown. Very enjoyable. Today the wind had abated and all the lifts were running. There was obviously a mad scramble to get to the top but we settled for a few lines just off the side of the bottom two lifts as we had Master 3 with us. Still some okay lines to be had, albeit the powder was a bit heavy due to the continuing mild temperatures. And despite what the websites will tell you the low hanging fruit at Furano tracks out very quickly indeed. We rattled around the lifted terrain and found a few decent snippets through the trees. I took LM6 up to the top of the premium zone - which seemed to have collected more snow than other parts of the mountain - and we got some nice turns untracked through a short section of trees near the top and then proceeded to take on the seething mass of frothing, churned-up powder that was knee deep (thigh-deep for LM6!) in the open part of the zone. My quads were fricking agony when we met M3 and mum down at the link lift after they skied down on piste from the top of the gondola. All up another great day. The snow was nice but a little heavy early and started crusting up a bit by PM. We have another 3 days here then 4 ski days in Tomamu but the forecast is for no more snow and very cold temps so I reckon it could get pretty Krusty McKrustface for the remainder of the trip. Not ideal, but certainly not the end of the world. And given the crazy, crazy weather in Japan this winter we'll certainly take what we've had and be grateful. Kamui beckons tomorrow.
Wow, we loved Kamui. We got a great sunny day for the trip, one hour on a little yellow bus with about ten others from Furano. The resort was modern compared to others in Japan and seemed incredibly well thought out with something for everyone. And did I mention it was virtually deserted? So many well groomed runs. It was carving heaven. Most of the groomed runs were red and green with just a couple of groomed blacks. Great pitch for skiing without being crazy steep - which might disappoint some of course. Don't get me wrong, you can absolutely fang it around these runs, but they're not at the absolute top end of the scale. There was also a heap of off-piste and a liberal policy on tree skiing, albeit fairly well tracked from the two previous days. And for the kids there was a banked bike track under one of the lifts which they absolutely loved. Dad, not so much! The lifts were good (all 2 seater but zero queues) and a modern gondola which fitted powder skis and twin tips on the outside!! A rarity in Japan! The food was also great with a simple food outlet and a good ramen place at the base and a nice restaurant with stunning views right at the top. How these places survive on such little patronage and cheap lift tickets I will never know, but unless you are desperate for scary life threatening steeps this place is amazing.
I fully concur. Kamui does fill up with locals on the weekends, especially with kids race clubs on a Sunday. The restaurant at the base goes nuts. Still plenty of empty space out wide, and separate queues for the racers and school kids.
we were there on a public holiday recently and the base area was nuts people everywhere, racers and yet the ski lifts for accessing the best terrain the gondola and 1 of the chairs was empty. One of my favourite resorts. Great fast consistent gradient reds for carving and great trees for offpiste. Some of the OOB was awesome too.
Tomamu backcountry. Snow holding up very well on the right aspects. It did help that it was -20 and blue sky this morning.
March in Tokachi, can't beat it. Blue sky above, sun on your face and light dry powder underfoot. Big rain predicted from Tuesday and very warm though but we should still get a few more good days after that as it seems to be cooling and snowing again late next week.
Looks fantastic, will be at Asahidake on Saturday if the weather is good. Lots of snow in the forecast.
Furano was fun today , with fresh snow up top this morning and filling in this arvo. Very quiet at the resort. I’ve noticed that Asahidake has been closed last couple of days. Any thoughts if it might open tomorrow?
Last ski on the tracks for the season at Furano followed by first (very cold but stunningly beautiful) ride for the year, milking it to the end for some social isolation. Covid 19 social distancing keeping us pretty quiet and hoping the low numbers of infection in Japan (on a per capita basis) are not a mirage. Wishing good health to all ski.com posters and their families during the apocalypse.
Re those images on feb 27 would that be TMS out front, looks vaguely familiar to me from all those photos of him walking up Everest in White Limbo back in the day. If so good to see he's still getting out there.
Too much bitumen between the snow patches, just the lower park was accessible a few days ago. All finished now.
Powder magazine interview with a Furano local. https://www.powder.com/interview/skiing-and-the-pandemic-resorts-across-hokkaido-remain-open/
