ASCEND & WANDER

During my research the online forums kept saying...  "Hokkaido is deep / Hakuba is steep"  Nagano Station Then a direct bus to Hakuba. JR Pass not accepted. Instead you had to take an inefficient route involving local trains. So the best way is the 1 hour bus ride but it was rather expensive all things considered as this stop to the Hakuba Valley was my last major destination of the trip.  Arriving in Hakuba late into the evening Food truck central with a mix of Japanese and Australian vibes Even advertising for Australian Physiotherapy right in the town This town has the whole apres ski hill night life scene and you 100% will meet other international folks. Felt quite different than Yuzawa and central Hokkaido. From the bus window. The shuttles were effective for getting around between the resorts. Sometimes at the end of the day you were waiting with a large bunch and when a single bus arrived it was a swarm of humans trying to get on. It was fun bouncing between the di...

  I had left Hokkaido 1-2 days prior and riding the trails southbound from Hakudate to Sendai.   Zao Onsen GPS  GPS (there are many good slackcountry routes accessed from the boundary in this track thanks to buddy I met out there. More on this in the text below)  The northen part of Honshu is seldomly travelled by internationals in Winter and especially less for skiing. There are still many resorts around. Limited access without cars but still doable. I overnighted in Yamagata and took a 1+ bus to Zao Onsen during the day. It turned out to be quite the fun and memorial day trip considering the skiing and the fellows I chatted with.  Waiting for the bus in Yamatgata.  It was actually rather difficult to find the bus stop and especially hard on a powder day. I had to ask a random person shoveling their walkway and they knew exactly where. They then processed to plow a part of the bus stop and was very generous to this clueless traveler.  Walking fro...

Continuing the drive from Sapporo to Asahikawa we left the toll road and continued on the snowy and run down local roads to south of Fukigawa to ski on Otoe-Yama.  Access was easy on a logging road and we heard forestry machinery nearby.  Stopping to wax the climbing skins to prevent the globs  Ascending the ridge to the summit. There did appear to be much of a prominent cornice on the ridge but to our west the view was completely unobstructed over the town which suggests the presence of wind slabs on the lee slope. With careful routefinding I was confident we could manage this risk...I was wrong Summit of Otoe-Yama When skiing back down I veered a little too far off our ascent tracks and released this slab avalanche right on the rollover/transition point. It definitely caught me off guard and shook me up a little bit. AB saw the crack as it propagated further along the ridge. Good thing she was in a good position on the ridge and I was fortunate also to just tumble over ...