We’ve been telling you for a while the best way to ski Hakuba’s powder champion, Cortina, is to stay there and not just day trip. so we sent the team - Austin Toner & Sam Perry - to prove it, and, as always, blend inconspicuously with the locals. Matt Hull took the pics & filed this report.
Our home for...
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but in the case of avalanche awareness it beats dumb ignorance hands down. If you’re serious about deep snow in Japan then get serious about safety and do an avi course when you get there. NOASC in Niseko & Evergreen in Hakuba offer several each season.
I signed up for the early start with Trainer...
story & pics Matt Hull
“All this is OK. Now, you drop!” said our guide, Araki San, as we perched on the side of a traverse track in the side country of the Seki Onsen ‘resort’ in Myoko, looking down at an untracked, deep, light powder field.
Seki Onsen is about 15 minutes from Akakura Kanko, the main Myoko Kogen resort,...
story & pics Owain Price
We get around in this job, and in Japan seriously weird is normal, all part of the fun, but within a couple of hours at Rusutsu we had seen and done things we had never done in our entire ski lifetimes.
Like listening to an animated singing tree on arrival. Sounds kitsch, but actually it takes...
There’s not a lot to Kamui Ski Links, a little base building with the basics of restaurant, hire and ski school, and a handful of lifts, led by the signature yellow gondola that runs top-to-bottom for the respectable 600m vertical.
Skiing under lift lines is a no-no in most of Japan, but Maeda Mitsu had no problems with us dropping...
story & images Matt Hull
You can look at trail maps all you want, and go exploring around resorts spending days looking for powder stashes, but nothing will get you more fresh turns than hanging out with an experienced local. As we struggled over the rubble at the end of a cat track I could just see Shimpei in the...
