POWDER!!!!

Hokkaido has come and gone and now its time to share and shave. Yes the beard is gone, it provided me warmth up north and it was time to go.

It was quite a trip and definitely some of the best powder I have ever ridden. Hokkaido reminded me a lot of BC and especially the interior with a lot of bare trees covered in snow. It was very picturesque with all of the mountains and lakes. The ski resort is across from a dormant volcano called Yotei-san that looks a lot like Mt. Fuji. It is actually referred to as little Mt. Fuji (or as Sara calls it “Fuji’s brother from another mother”). I spent a lot of time taking pictures of this mountain because it is so imposing you can’t help but stare at it whenever it is clear enough to see it.

The resort itself is on Mt. Annapuri and comprised of three resorts collectively referred to as Grand Hirafu. The three resorts are Annapuri, Higashiyama, and Hirafu. The latter being the largest and where we spent most of our time. The terrain was quite open but not terribly steep. In the deep powder it was difficult to get speed at times and there were some spots that swallowed numerous inexperienced skiers and boarders requiring them to dig themselves out and trek through waist deep powder. That’s right I said waist deep powder!! The first couple of days were not looking good with rain on Monday and bulletproof ice on Tuesday. But boy did things change for Wed, Thurs, Friday. The snow barely stopped for the last three days and there was fresh dry powder everywhere. It was amazing!! Even with the bad conditions on the first two days we still rode from first lift at 8:30 to 5:00 everyday.

It has been a few days since we returned and I am still tired. I had a lot of fun and tried to take a lot of pictures without freezing my hands off during the process. Some of the pictures you see are of the rest of the crew I went with.