disco2000 0 Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 Hi everyone. This is my first post on the forums, although I've been creeping for a while. I got a couple free lift tickets to Tomamu a while back, and I was asked to write a trip report on it. However, on the weekend I visited Tomamu there was nothing but ice all over the mountain, and I ended up just riding the terrain park the whole time, which isn't a whole lot to write about. So I thought I'd write about my trip to Asahidake from this weekend instead. I live in southwest Hokkaido, about an hour west of Sapporo. Spring has hit the region, with the giant walls of snow on the sides of roads almost gone, but the last week saw some low-ish temperatures and precipitation. While that still meant rain on most of the mountains around my area, the word was that the snow was faling in Asahidake, the highest peak in Hokkaido. So a few buddies and I decided to make the trek out and hit up the ropeway. Driving up went from this To this Got there around 10, and the cable car was quite crowded. Visibility was non-existent, but I was just glad the ropeway was running.. Pretty harsh conditions at the top, with some large windblown patches. The visibility was so bad that we couldn't see each other if we strayed more than 10 meters away from each other, which meant getting separatedly frequently. I skied right into a hole at one point, which I had to climb out of. Sketchy stuff. People at the top Once we dropped into the trees, however, we were treated with ankle deep powder and decent visiblity. Definitely early-March like conditions, with large pillows with cushy powder landings and faceshots We mostly rode the obvious path down skier's left of the ropeway. It was pretty tracked out by the afternoon. I did do a run down the right side, at the end of the day, which provided some steep and deep runs, albeit a bit short. I could definitely see what people mean by Asahidake being "4-5 deepest turns of your life, and then riding the cat track for 10 minutes." Still, the weather "cleared up" a fair bit near the end of the day on the bottom half of the mountain, and it was clear that there were endless lines to be had with some familiarity with the mountain and good visibility from the top. All in all, an amazing day considering it's mid-April. Skiing out the cat tracks, I seriously felt like it was February again, with the trees overloaded with snow. Driving back home through Higashikawa looked like this. Definitely spring everywhere else in Hokkaido. I was glad I could have one last day of winter (read: powder) before I put away the skis for the season. Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan 178 Posted April 15, 2013 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted April 15, 2013 Hello disco2000 Thanks for the report. I don't know why it was happening but photos you embedded were getting blocked. Could you please upload them here anyway: http://www.snowjapanforums.com/index.php/gallery Thank you! Link to post Share on other sites
disco2000 0 Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 Thanks for letting me know! I think I fixed it? Link to post Share on other sites
griller 9 Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 cool disco2000 You can also embed them using the img tags if you didn't know Link to post Share on other sites
disco2000 0 Posted April 16, 2013 Author Share Posted April 16, 2013 OK I think that worked. Hopefully it doesn't disappear again.. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted April 16, 2013 Share Posted April 16, 2013 nice report Disco. The snow has mainly all gone from Sapporo as well. I'm definitely in spring mode now....well waiting for spring to actually be sprung....looking forward to next season and the pow it'll brig Link to post Share on other sites
tim_d 0 Posted April 16, 2013 Share Posted April 16, 2013 Only a very new poster as well disco2000 but the creeping took me to this TR of your! Awsome stuff, good to see the pow pow is still a falling and the vis wasent to bad in the trees! Cant wait to get back there! Link to post Share on other sites
seemore 66 Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Cheers Disco Looked like a good day up there Link to post Share on other sites
disco2000 0 Posted April 18, 2013 Author Share Posted April 18, 2013 Looks like I might be going up again this weekend 500km roundtrip but I can't say no to April powder! Link to post Share on other sites
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