It starts here, sydney airport. Im off to Hokkaido solo for 6 weeks living in a van, chasing the snow, no fixed address.
I will be reporting in whenever I can get free wifi with pics and vids. . You can also add me to facebook http://facebook.com/leigh.snowboardinginjapan . If anyone in the area wants to hook up drop me a pm or spacebook me.
Cheers dude. Living in the car is awesome, watch the weather maps and radar and chase the snow. Bumming it in resort lobby's, seeing the backstreets and places you would never see if the GPS didnt send you down some stupid road LOL.
As for cold the coldest its been is -21c and I was warm as toast in my -10 sleeping bag with down jacket, pants and hut booties. Hut booties are a must for doing this!
Request sent! Safe trip, totally jealous!! Post photos!
I hope one day to do a trip to Hokkaido for some pow! Would be great to get some pointers for you after your trip!:bowdown:
I have one question, why 6 weeks? Could you do this for the whole winter? How long do their winters last? When is it the snowiest? How do you make money? How much does it cost if you live in a van? Do you just drive around Hokkaido searching for snow?
You would be surprised how much more snow you get when you have a car. The snow is very localised here. It can dump 80cm at one place and 40klm away might only get 10cm. This happened numerous times this trip with niseko being the looser.
Something big is coming this afternoon btw.
Where is something big happening this afternoon
I will be headed to Hokkaido tomorrow morning (from Tokyo). Kiroro on Sunday and Teine on Monday. Would be nice to hit some powder!
Kiroro has some nice bits but is painfully flat. I had the deepest day of my trip at kiroro with powder well over 1m deep but the place simply does not have the fall line to accommodate such deep snow. Teine is a much better bet in the deep stuff as it has steeps.
PS your sig gets a bit annoying after a while NYT. Time to make it your avatar like the rest of us do and get it out of peoples faces so much I think ;-)
Thanks for the info. Yeah i hope we can land ok haha. Weather reports did say strong winds and lots of snow. First day we have a friend taking us around to do some touristy stuff, and mainly just eating.
As for Kiroro being fairly flat, i guess i can cope with that. I ride a park board so i am happy to stick with the groomers if the powder runs are going to leave me stuck in waist deep powder flatspots.
Teine backbowls sound great but i only have about 5hrs of boarding there, and a wife who doesnt like hiking much. Will have to stick with the lifted runs, hopefully its not too bad
Kiroro: my first experience with real powder (the stuff that doesnt stick to your board at all). Park was closed, very few natural features near the groomed runs and those flat runs... holy crap they were boring. Wanted to try the tree runs but after seeing how flat it was at the bottom of the runs, i was worried i would just get stuck waist deep somewhere with no way out.
Teine: FUN. North face was awesome until the skiiers mogulled it up and beginner boarders snowplowed all the powder snow off. Snow was a little heavier but still amazing
Hokkaido, i will be back... (thinking April for some late season action)
Well that sucks. At first I thought it was you tumbling. Whick would jave been super violent. That dude was an idiot. One of the many reasons you rarely find me at the area. Glad it wasn't more (I think) serious.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Snowboarding Forum - Snowboard Enthusiast Forums
1M posts
46.5K members
Since 2006
A forum community dedicated to all Snowboarding enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about equipment reviews, tips, traveling, gear troubleshooting, share photos, and more!