Gassan - Moon Mountain Part 1 It is listed in T.R. Reid`s "Ski Japan" as the Japanese Ski Area having the "strangest" season .However that really does not do justice to the ski area.

When May rolls around, most Japanese ski areas have closed shop for the season, a few are about to (Appi and Geto Kogen being prime examples), and a
few more which have received rather copious amounts of snow through the winter, will stay open a while longer. 

Here in Tohoku, Iwate`s Hachimantai Ski Area, and the "powder collector" in Aomori, Hakkoda Ropeway will be in that group. However, none will be opening up for the season, and that is exactly what Yamagata-Ken`s Gassan will be doing. Yes, its May-July season is somewhat strange, but it is also, at that time of the year, probably the "best show in town".  Gassan (literally "Moon Mountain" in Japanese) is a small glacier-based ski area in Tohoku Region's Yamagata Prefecture. It is about a two-hour drive Northwest of Yamagata`s capital city, Yamagata City.  Its season starts whenever the service roads leading to the ski area are accessible. Most years that is sometime in April, this year has had a very heavy snowfall, so it may even be closer to May this year. 

Gassan stays open as long as there is skiable snow. This frequently will run in to July. In fact, there is a traditional ski race held at Gassan sometime in June. It would lose its novelty, but if Gassan were accessible during winter, it could probably offer nine or ten months of skiing every year.  It is just that novelty that makes Gassan a very charming resort, and also not exactly a cheap one either, as the lift tickets were well in excess of 4000 yen per day. The thrill of skiing in May, something I had never done before last year, lead me to Gassan, and though the lift ticket was a tad pricey, it was money well spent, and definitely one of the highlights of my Japanese skiing experiences.  

The stereotype says that the Japanese are quick to follow fads, and just as quick to drop them. Well skiing in May is not for someone who is a "casual" or "faddish" skier, and needless to say that those people still skiing in May are at least a little "sukii-kichi" ("Ski-Crazy!" in English).  Not necessarily your die-hard, b---s to the walls, "pact with the devil for powder", ski maniacs, but people to whom skiing is, at the very least, a consistent devotion of sorts. That type of skier exists in abundance in Japan, and to them the annual first week of May "Golden Week" holiday is not a trip to Thailand, Hong Kong, Hawaii, or one of Japan` s more frequently visited tourist traps, but a venture deep into "Dou-Inaka"("The Sticks" or "BFE" in English) for one last great homage to the Shinto gods of skiing.

Last year I had the chance to participate in the "homage" deep into Yamagata Prefecture, (Yamagata, incidentally, in Japanese means "mountain-shaped", and
the view from Gassan gives a lot of credence to it being the PERFECT name for the prefecture) and it has been one of the more memorable moments of my stay in Japan up to this point. I went there on a "Golden Week" trip arranged by the
Outdoor Special Interest Group of the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. "Outdoor SIG" as it is known, is the largest of the JET programs special interest groups, and consists of over two hundred JETs who would much rather chop firewood, discover a new route up/or down Fuji san, lava surf (naked), or in the words of one member "EAT pow(der)!" 

I departed from Morioka station on a rainy May morning, looking conspicuously out of place carrying my skis. I should say MORE conspicuously out of place than usual, any non-Asian person who has been to Japan knows EXACTLY what I mean. Perhaps the "sore thumb" I'm accustomed to sticking out like had developed gangrene.  I took a bus to Sendai, also known as "civilization" to those who work in the Tohoku region, it being the only city of more than 300,000 people between Tokyo and Sapporo. Well, civilization, in the form of coffee shops whose coffee may be American, but don't feel the need to heavily advertise it, fast food chains beyond Japan's "Big Four" of Mos Burger, McD`s, KFC, and Mr. Donut`s, and book stores whose English selection goes beyond Danielle Steele, John Grisham, and "Biker-Babes with Tattoos" Magazine, diverted my attention long enough for me to take a later train to Yamagata City, and then from there to hop on the day's last bus to the base of Gassan. 

This bus was delayed a little bit on the trip to the large hot spring resort, and the last bus up to the ski area left without waiting (it is supposed to leave at exactly the same time as the Yamagata bus arrives) this left me stranded at the hot spring, with no chance of catching up to the OSIG crew as cell phone access wasn't working. The adventure was just beginning..... I put on my best beleaguered traveler face, tried as hard as I could with my Japanese, and was able to procure some assistance from the hot spring staff in finding a local place that had a room. That an empty room was not a given during Golden Week near Gassan, and the fact that when found, was in no way cheap (eating into my budget into the process) stifles my urge to recommend play "beleaguered foreign traveler" too often in Japan. 

Based on experience and conjecture, I would say it will give you a "night with the Yakuza" if tried in anywhere else but quite rural Japan. I just barely got away with it here. Nonetheless, I was lead to a quite nice "Pension" (Bed & Breakfast), that did have an open room.  Though it did cost a bit, I was given a good home coked meal, was very hospitably treated, and between my Japanese and the English of one of the many guests, was able to converse fairly freely with those in the dining room. My guess was that even though I was surely not the first foreigner to stay there, it was certainly not an everyday experience. I with all my heart can recommend the place, I'd even tell you the name of the place, but the business card I was given for the place ended up in a box with a lot of other business cards, and that box was eventually tossed. Sorry. Gomen Ne!  

A couple from Tokyo, who were not about to spend Golden Week on the JTB (Japanese Tourist Bureau, the nations largest travel agency chain) package to Guam, a "sukii-kichi" couple, the first of many I was to meet at Gassan, offered me a ride to the ski area the next morning, and I was off to ski in May for the first time in my life....