Following on from the last post, we did have to rest and recover on some days off but we’d requested 6 days off at the start of the season to go ski some other resorts we’ve never been to. So this had to change as recovery took priority but we did manage a few fun things.
We took a trip to Sounkyo Kurodake ice festival on the recommendation of friends who’d been the week before. We drove there via a stop at HAP Burger and Spray snowboard shop in Asahikawa. The burgers are mega and Spray is snowboarding heaven 😍 We arrived late afternoon, checked in to our Japanese style hotel and took a walk down to the ice festival. It was free to get in 👍 sadly though that was because it was quite warm, it was melting fast and some of the ice features were closed for safety !!! Don’t want a massive icicle to the head…..
We then went back to the hotel and went to their mineral onsen. That fixed all the dry skin where I’d been blowing my nose for seemingly forever with the cold. Judging by the receptionist’s face, they dont often see Westerners wearing the yukata (light kimono they supply) 👘 down to the onsen !!!!
Then we played some pool 🎱 whilst sampling the free, welcome sake. (Spoiler alert I beat Janet 😅). Then we wandered down for the fire works over the ice displays, which was pretty cool.
Beer and then making the futons on the tatami mat floor – it was a surprisingly good sleep.
Next day we visited the frozen waterfalls (watched some ice climbers ascending them), a gorge like giants causeway and a massive lake before driving back home.
Whilst drooling over Gentemstick snowboards in Spray, the sales guy mentioned that there was going to be Gentem day in Furano soon. Luckily I (Pete) was off one of the days so managed to try 5 different models. Most are powder based and there wasn’t any powder 🙈🙈 but still you could feel the differences rather than just reading the marketing speil…… if I had the money I’d buy the Rocket Fish 🐟
On a warm day off we went to try cross country skiing with Jas, Ellie and Ollie. It’s a weird thing as it doesn’t translate to skating like we’d assumed. After a few dodgy moments we all managed 5km before heading off to HAP Burger 🍔 In true Japanese style, there wasn’t any charge to rent the kit at the park – they just want to encourage people to try it and stay fit.
In a moment of chance and a “its who you know not what you know” kinda way, we found ourselves heading to the Korua demo day a few days later. A few days before, Pete had finished his lesson and saw eight people all on Korua boards and had a giggle to himself – ahh friends 😀
Then in the carpark they had all the boards lined up against a van and were taking pics of them, Pete joked “oh the Korua crew are in town”, turns out they did all work for Korua !!! Found out about the demo day and got accepted on to the pro-deal program for instructors to get a discount if we bought their boards 😎😎😎
Anyway so me, Janet and Thomas (a colleague) drove to Canmore and demo’d 5 boards each. Thomas bought ice cream and cookies as a thanks on way home and that night we ordered brand new boards – what a treat 😍
Next day off was Asahidake day – the highest mountain in Hokkaido complete with active steam vents near the top. We’ve wanted to go there since our Club Med season when Greg went and we saw his pictures 👀👀
We’d heard it was a sketchy place to go for the first time if the weather wasn’t great, hence us chickening out previous seasons……..
Opened the curtains and it was a blue bird day, drove for 2 hours, the approach to the ropeway station was just stunning 😍
The queue was slow moving as it was running at 30% capacity before maintenance the next day. An hour later we were up top and hiking up to the volcanic steam vents that make it popular with skiers but also non skiers. It was worth the trip as even more impressive in real life.
A few million pics later and we hiked up to the top of a ridge and watched a few people ski off into the horizon. We opted to go for the shorter of the 2 routes we’d witnessed.
Once over the next ridge we were greeted by wide open, deep powder 😍😍 What a joy!! But we reached a flat bit so the mantra was “don’t fall” otherwise it’d be a long, deep walk. We made it to the only groomed cat track, crossed it and rode a beautiful powder bowl, then some nice spaced trees and then re-joined the cat track just at the right spot to cruise back down to the ropeway.
We decided we had to do it again, so used a free ticket someone kindly gave us as we stood in the queue. We chatted to a lovely couple from the UK on the way up. Visibility was rubbish this time and we could see why everyone had warned us, but we knew how to do that same route again, so off we went. We passed the lady we had chatted to who had fallen in the horrible flat spot !!!!
2nd run was fast as didn’t have to look for obstacles.
Drove home via a Combini picnic (the convenience stores here sell everything you could wish for).
