The end of winter in Hokkaido always brings mixed emotions. I love winter here. I love the beautiful snow and all of the awesome things you can do in it. But I also love late spring and summer here. The cherry blossoms, getting back in the garden, being able to bike around the city, and backpacking in the mountains. Early spring is a bit of a slush pit though, and I`m always a little sad to see the snowboarding season end. But yesterday, as we were hiking in the back country with our Tipi club friends, we got some good news! While the ski slopes tend to close in early April, the back country season doesn`t end until sometime in MAY! It`s the best of all worlds! We can bike to work, plant things in the dirt, and then go snowboarding on the weekend!
But in the meantime we`re taking full advantage of the last days of winter - snowboarding on the slopes and back country, and enjoying the last of the white city before it all turns grey/brown/black and the dog poop-cicles start melting out of the snow heaps.
Two weekends ago, our friend Kelly`s parents came to town and we all headed to Rusutsu for the weekend. It`s rare to get good views from the top there because it`s usually snowing. But we had two gloriously blue, sunny days with the best views we`ve ever seen from the top. Below top left is Lake Toya, top right is Mt. Yotei with Niseko mountain in the background. The next two rows show images from off-piste.
This past weekend we had another back country adventure. This time we went to Mayoizawa mountain, and it was a lovely day, but the snow reminded me of North Carolina (in a bad way). We`ve entered the near-spring weather of warmer temperatures and sunny days which leads to a 2 or 3 week window of really hard snow. After this period, the snow becomes kind of granulated, and there`s still a really deep base so it becomes fun to ride again. They call it zarume yuki in Japanese, which translates to granulated sugar. Now it`s more like 1 year old brown sugar yuki. You know that sugar. The old brick in your cabinet you have to drop from 6 feet up to be able to cook with. But it`s always fun to spend time with the Tipi club. And even when the snow is bad it`s amazing to be in the back country. We even saw some wildlife - a tiny wood pecker and a squirrel (I realize squirrels aren`t that exciting back home because they`re everywhere, but you rarely see them here and they`ve got little tufts of fuzz on their ears that make them look like squirrel-bunnies which is kind of painfully cute).
Top left you can see the city of Sapporo from the mountain. Bottom left - Takahashi San and Brian excited for the ride. To the right here - Shinohara San and Nauki San on the way up.
Takahashi San is usually busy taking photos and videos of everyone on these treks. He recently sent us links to his albums. You can check them out by following the links, but I nabbed a few to show you. The following photo credits all go to Takahashi San.
From the bottom up, this is Mrs. Hashida, Brian, me, Yamachan? (maybe), and Shinohara San climbing up Kiroro in a heavy snow. This was our second back country trip, the day we had insanely deep powder.
On the same trip. She actually hasn`t fallen down. She is in fact skiing. The snow is just. that. deep. This is the day we learned to snowboard with poles.
