Tag Archives: Snowboarding

5 Days Snowboarding in Niseko

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Today I returned home after 5 days of snowboarding in Niseko, or Annupuri to be more accurate. It is a great place for skiing and snowboarding, especially if you like a lot of snow, backcountry and powder.

This year they have had more than 13.5 meters of snow in Niseko. At the top they had 4 meters in the slopes. The snow is dry and it is almost always perfect conditions in the slopes. But even though the snow is good in the slopes it is the backcountry snowboarding that is amazing. Easy access directly from the slopes, and very liberate rules. Also, every day they provide detailed snow information and avalanche risk evaluation.



Most of the days I snowboarded backcountry, with my beacon on, and my probe, shovel, and first aid kit in the backpack. And made sure to stay away from the high risk areas. Even though Niseko is a popular place there is not many people in the slopes, and even less so in the backcountry. But still, at the end of a day many lines have been made 🙂



It was great. And just a crazy good feeling to be out in the snow, in the fresh air with fresh white snow everywhere. Sometimes I just stopped and sat in the snow watching, listening to some birds tweeting (the real kind and not the digital version we humans do 😉 in the trees.



Summary of Shiga Kogen

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The wonderful days of Shiga Kogen is over for this year and I just want to make a summary of it here. So if you are not interested in snowboarding you had better skip to the next blog post.

1st day. Snowing but quite good snowboarding. The visibility was still OK even though it was snowing.



2nd day. Blue sky. 15 cm new and powdery snow. I snowboarded in back country area most of the morning until the snow became a bit wet and heavy in the sunshine. Wonderful!



I went riding in three different back country areas. You can see two of them in the pictures below. The red arrows is where I was riding. In the area in the picture to the left I went maybe 10-15 times. Up in the lift and down on the board… With a big smile on my face 😀 It was replaced quit fast by sweat and strain on my face once I finished the ride in the picture to the right as I had to walk in deep snow for about 25 minutes to get back to the slopes 😛



The final day was very clear. You could see the minami-alps (sout alps) in the background. It was really beautiful. And if we did not have to go back to Tokyo already before noon I think I would have just found a nice spot in the warm sun and relaxed there the whole afternoon, viewing the mountains.



Finally a word on what keeps the energy levels up during a trip like this… Chocolate and nuts and any other sweets that you can find. The picture below just shows the leftovers after 7 people had been eating what I brought. I think half my bag was full of sweets on the way there 🙂



Ohhh, and a fun part of the trip was that we could see some monkeys on the way back. It was nice and only the second time I’ve seen monkeys in Japan, if you exclude those in the office 😉

Final Day in Shiga Kogen

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Early birds get paid… I was waiting for the lift to open today again. But today I was alone. The rest? Stayed in bed and watched TV.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to enjoy yet another sunny day in the slopes. Or at least the 2 first hours of it. The lift opened at 8 am and by 10 am I was done. Not so much because I was exhausted but our checkout time was 11 am.

Also, already by 10 am the snow started to get wet and the slopes started to get crowded. I enjoyed the 2 best hours of the day 🙂



From the top you could have a great view of the “Japanese Alps”, stretching out as a white-topped mountain wall in the horizon. It was such a great day I didn’t really mind it not being the best snowboarding. It was just great being out in the fresh air with all the white snow 😎



By 2 pm I was back in Tokyo. Returning directly home. Then waiting for Chie to get back home so we could have a dinner together. Tonight we went to Il Lupone, an Italian restaurant not far from home. Yummy!

Oh, I almost forgot… On our way down from Shiga Kogen we saw two monkeys, Japanese Macaque. The first was probably a teenager, quite small and living life on the edge running around on road. The other was fully grown and sitting on the railings on the side of the road. Unfortunately I did not get the camera up in time, so you just have to trust me 🙂

Sunny Day in Shiga Kogen

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Yesterday it was snowing the whole day but today it was nothing but blue sky everywhere. And it had snowed about 10 cm during the night so it was a great morning. We all started it by being the first to get on the lift.

At first I went with my friends but they wanted to ski in the ski only area after a while so I continued on my own. I found a great back country area with powder snow (though not as powdery as in Niseko).

At lunch time the powder snow had turned in to quite wet and heavy snow, though still quite soft. And my legs had turned in to jelly (more leg exercises in the gym to prepare for next snowboard season). It was time to meet my friends for some food.

Snowing in Shiga Kogen

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Woke up a little bit earlier today than I usually do. I was catching an early train to Nagano to go snowboarding with some friends. As usual we met at the Nagano station and rode by car to Shiga Kogen.

By noon we’d had lunch and were hitting the slopes. It was snowing a gently the whole afternoon. But it was still good visibility and easy snowboamrding.

We were riding together the whole afternoon. The seven of us. 3 girls and 4 guys, 2 snowboarders and 5 loosers on skis 😉

Around 4 pm we had enough and went back to our rooms. Cleaned up in the artificial onsen (hot and outdoors but not natural), together with a whole lot of other people. Then had time to relax and talk in the room before going for dinner.

The restaurant was in the building next to the hotel so we had to walk aoutside for 25 meters. It was snowing, and quite beautiful. The food was Chinese and I had a chance to try Brian’s Sudden Death Sauce, a gift from Hachobori-san. Tasty. And HOT!!!

After dinner we all met up in the guys’ room. Drinking (sports drink for me and stronger variants of what everyone claimed to be sports drinks, though I am still doubtful ;-)). Talking. and having a fun time.