The Search for The Secret Powder Haven It’s easy for us to get tangled up in the newest boards, the comfiest boots, and the most contrived bindings, or to get lost in a flurry of resort information looking for the best slopes, the nicest hotels, the most extravagant hot springs.

But I think we should stop for a few minutes and divert our thoughts from those things that usually hold our attention and focus on the little guys who make our sport possible. The ones who can make or break a snowboard trip more than any other factor are the same ones who are most stepped on, shoved about, thrown around, crushed, cursed, and anticipated. No, I am not talking about the ski patrol I’m talking about the snow. How would you feel if all of the snowboarders in the world were standing around just waiting for YOU to fall? That would be pretty grim, wouldn’t it? Yes, so let’s take a few minutes to upraise the little falling fellas with our gracious curiosity.

  
Of course the one we need to look out for most is the Japanese snow flake, who despite his best efforts to fall as fast as he can, still finds his snowboarders openly declaring that the minute that they have enough time or money they will leave the Japanese snow behind for the flakes of Northwest America. Who wouldn’t flake out under these conditions?

While you may be staring dreamily at a Whistler brochure, you may be surprised to know that snowboarders from around the world are looking for Japan without even knowing it. Before you consider blowing out of town, maybe it is time you had a fresh look at Japan’s "freshies" from a global perspective. On a recent trip to Niseko, I made the acquaintance of girl named Ali from the west coast of the United States who claims that she has been snowboarding for 13 years. I asked her what she was doing in Hokkaido and she said, "Snowboarding," in a tone of voice that made the ensuing, "duh!" unnecessary. She explained that she works through the summer saving her money and then picks a country to settle in for the snowboarding season. Seizing this opportunity, I asked her for the best resorts, the secret powder havens.

I bet he knows where some secret powder havens are!

  
Expecting answers like Baker, Jackson Hole, or Banff, she said, "Well, you won’t believe me when I say this but, Niseko is my favorite so far."

Niseko? In Japan? Right here?

"Niseko just has the best snow, and no one knows about it! It is like a secret, I love it!" She nodded.

Discovering that you are actually standing in the secret powder Mecca of the world that you have spent years dreaming about is a humbling experience much like finding out that your lost goggles are sitting on your head. Is Japan the "Secret Park?"

Three days later I chanced upon a couple of weary foreign travelers at my station in Shinmaruko who were toting snowboard bags behind them. Being a nosey foreigner myself, I asked them where they were going and they glumly said that they had to go return to their homes on the west coast of the US. When I asked them why they had come to Japan, they told me that this was their third time to come to Japan for snowboarding.

"The snow in Japan is great, and the snow in Hokkaido is amazing!" they said. Their revelation was not as startling to me as the fact that they had traveled from the west coast of the US, often viewed as the home of the best resorts in the world, to Japan specifically for snowboarding.

"We’re thinking of arranging a tour to come over here next season. Anything to get back over here!"

How could this be? For years I have guffawed over the notion that Japanese snow is actually different from the snow overseas. Of course this notion was originally introduced as a bucket of government protectionist hogwash in an attempt to shelter Japanese ski manufacturers but maybe the stumbling bureaucrat who uttered that statement to the world wasn’t entirely mistaken.

I asked my roommate from Colorado which country had the best snow as far as he was concerned.

"Japan, definitely!" He said. "You can wait all season to get great conditions in the US but in Japan, the conditions are almost always great!"

Far from being the type of person who takes his roommate seriously, I began to investigate snow conditions around the world. My initial research confounded me. I thought that Japan, being an island nation of mountains surrounded entirely by water could potentially have more snow than the resorts of North America or Europe, but I was wrong. Even though the roads to places like Tateyama Kurobe or Okutadami Maruyama are closed for months of the year due to snowfall, larger amounts are still recorded each year in the Alps, Rockies and Northwestern America.

A not so scenic bus ride on the road to Tateyama

  
Perhaps contrary to popular belief, powder is not an issue of quantity so much as it is an issue of quality. I was fortunate to stumble across an interesting FAQ in the National Snow and Ice Data Center Homepage that claimed that ‘fluffy snow’ – the scientific term for "pow" - actually tends to fall at –9C (15F). So, even if a lot of snow falls, it doesn’t actually mean there is a lot of powder. Fortunately, many of our snowboarding Meccas here in Japan, particularly those in Hokkaido and Nagano, have mountain temperatures that hover right around that ideal temperature of –9C.

Forget about saving the whales, who is gonna save me some powder?

  
Further reading lead to the discovery that fresh snow is one of the most fragile things on the planet, direct sunlight, strong winds, or anything else that can slightly alter the temperature of the snow can cause the entire snow pack to change permanently, never returning to it’s former glory. We’ve all seen a beautiful mountain of fresh snow turn to solid concrete over the course of morning. Oddly enough, the geology that is often cursed for causing Japan’s slopes to be shorter than those overseas may in fact be a blessing to counteract the senseless death of powder. While mountain temperature and weather in any part of the world can change completely in a surprisingly short period of time, the mountain ranges that play host to Japan’s snowboard resorts are about 1000 meters lower than their counterparts overseas, which means less drastic fluctuations in temperature and wind speed, which in turn leads to better preserved powder. So even though the powder out here is fragile, it seems to be in much less hostile environment than its cousins overseas.

A friend of mine took a trip to Whistler early in the season during a time when they were claiming record snowfall. By the time he got there, conditions had changed severely; the snow stopped falling and started melting. Whistler had lost about 1 meter of snow over the course of a week! I have heard similar stories many a time. So the next time you are cursing out the little snowflakes or the short slopes, stop for a moment to consider the snowboarders around the world who have never even tasted a smidgen of powder, the snowboarders who have to rely on stair banisters for their kicks. Just consider yourself lucky not to be stuck with a bum ticket to Whistler!

Come join the ranks of the snowboarders who are not cursing out the little snowflakes, but are praying for them!