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Here are a few from New Years Day and blower powder.

Atsushi

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and more

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and more

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Daisuke

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and more

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and more

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One of the best powder days of my life. Niseko/Rusutsu powder sucks in comparison, and I know the next time I head back to Hokkaido I will spend more time in Asahikawa and Tokachidake.

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One of the best things about Kamui is that it is owned by Maeda san, who is a former pro skier, and his son currently is and is on the big mountain scene. The entire mountain is open. There are ropes, but you are allowed to duck them and ski the trees which makes Kamui a great little place. My only caution is in the center trees there are 3 places that come to cat track, and if you are coming in at mach three you could really hurt yourself. The outs for snowboarders can be a pain as we found out. I gave my poles several times to help tsonda get out. The mountain isnt that high, something like the peak is at 800 meters making it def on the smaller side, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in really really dry "blower" powder. It makes Nisekos powder feel heavy.

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Originally Posted By: Go Native
JA are you sure you're really into skiing? Never heard of blower powder?!!
I guess you are from Australia where they never get it razz

Great pics CB thumbsup


Nah, I just hang around here annoying people! True, never heard the term "blower powder". My immediate thought was for some man-made snow out of the fan machines, but realised that Kamui didn't have any of these when I was there.

True, I'm from Aus, and that is why I thought of the fan blowers first - and YES, I am into skiing since I was 49!

Now, can you explain the term, or are you happier just to put sh!t on me? wavey
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Ah..Kamui. My old stomping grounds! Some of the best pow ever. Was just there after Xmas as well as Santa Present in Asahikawa and Pipu. I was a little bummed that Fukagawa (beside Kamui) shut down for good as I used to nighta there all the time. Great Pics BTW!!

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Originally Posted By: Slippery Jim
JA, blower snow is powder so light it sort of blows all over you as you make turns, also known as cold smoke, diamond dust, champagne powder, etc.etc.


Why thankee gentleman Jim! Now I know, and I suspect so do a lot of others who were just too timid to ask. And, Yep, no such thing in the good ole Aussie snowfields!
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Originally Posted By: Creek Boy
Didnt Fukagawa close down last year? It seemed pretty small, but I thought I saw some guys skinning up it to ski the untracked pow there smile


Don't know. Funny, I was at my brother-in-laws place and I was just gearing up to go for a nighta at Fukagawa (like so many times in the past)...he looks at me puzzled and says, "You know it's closed, right?" DOH!!

It was small but it was the only place with decent night skiing at the time.
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Originally Posted By: Creek Boy
Small world it is! S.L. I took hundreds of shots from Kamui and Tokachidake and some of them are incredible. Hope you guys had a safe drive to Niseko that night!



Hahhahah...
Very bizarre!
Great to put a face to a name.
Your shots are sweet! Conditions in Niseko at the moment are a far cry from what we had up in Furano around new years. I would definitely be spending some more time up that way next trip and do Asahidake,Kamui and Kurodake....that is if we don't head down to Honshu next time.
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Conditions were awesome in Niseko around New Years as well. Nowhere is good all the time throughout the entire season! Asahidake is great fun but be aware that Kurodake but the ropeway can be shut for a fair portion of Jan and the top lift sometimes doesn't open till near the end of Feb. I rekon add Tomamu to your list as well. I haven't been yet myself but really want to this season sometime.

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Definitely head to Honshu some time. There are so many great places that should be visited thumbsup

We had decent snow at Furano, but the coverage was really bad. Some of the areas we wanted to ski still had soooo much Sasa. That area under the pair lift that connected the mountain looked siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. Will definitely go poach that some day smile

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I agree,

I didn't mean to sound like I was bagging niseko, I have come every year since '03, I have seen it at its best and its worst!

I have been to Tomamu before along with Furano,Rusutsu,Chise,Kokusai,Kamui and a couple of other little ones but Kurodake and Asahidake are still on the list thats all.

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Originally Posted By: Creek Boy
Definitely head to Honshu some time. There are so many great places that should be visited thumbsup
We had decent snow at Furano, but the coverage was really bad. Some of the areas we wanted to ski still had soooo much Sasa. That area under the pair lift that connected the mountain looked siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. Will definitely go poach that some day smile


The area under the pair lift is good fun for sure, handy to have a skier to break a trail on the exit though.
Furano's ski patrol seem to have a completely different attitude to when I was there last in '06. We never once picked up a tail or had any warnings over the loudspeaker about skiing off piste and we were lapping the trees also!
They also groomed a track off the top of the gondola into kuma toshi (sp?)so you could plunder both the gullies at the top of the mountain.....happy times!
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yeah, we hit there (I believe I know where youre talking about) and they ran back to the gelende right?

 

You skied that? Did you come down the spine or just next to it in the ravine? Where did it come out and was there any trouble getting out? We didnt know the outs, and didnt bring avi gear, so we couldnt be bothered jumping in, but damn it looked good. Actually, most all of Furano looks really good, and just a short traverse away from the resort there were really nice lines. Want to go back.

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