The 2019 season at Niseko had been very unusual so far. Last year they had 40 metres of snow, this year way less and nothing significant in the 2 weeks before we got there. Alastair had told us that by afternoon conditions were going to be quite spring-like, so we all got underway early in order to catch the first shuttle to the lifts, about a kilometre slightly uphill from our apartment.
Up at Hirafu Base we got our tickets and loaded ourselves and our kit into the gondola for the first leg up the mountain. What a civilised way to get up the mountain compared to exposed chairlifts. We put our skis on for the first time in 10 years to go the 100 metres to the next lift! Up a covered quad chairlift to another part of the mountain where Alastair thought the conditions might be good. Our first run was pretty dire. Our legs were burning by the bottom, but we'd done pretty well considering our advanced age and lack of practice! No doubt the shorter and more modern skis helped us. Unfortunately even at 9:30am the snow there was a bit spring-like, so we gave that run away and moved around other lifts for the rest of the morning. There was a mixture of open quad chairlifts, more the same but with perspex bubbles over us, and two gondolas. The snow in other areas was much better, though it was certainly not the powder we had all expected, and that would normally be there for another month.
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| On Niseko |
It was also our first time skiing with trees around us. They were mostly rather gnarled silver birches, and free of leaves. Here and there there appeared to be little bushes just poking out of the snow, but we discovered later that they were full size trees, but 6 or 8 metres deep in snow!
Around midday we sat down in a cafe and ate our lunches, our legs rather tired, but having had a huge amount of excellent skiing. After lunch we discovered a little gully with lovely snow, and like almost the entire field virtually empty of skiers. We spent most of the afternoon looping this little run non-stop. The chairs were very fast, and the queues were almost non-existent. The longest wait was a tiny 20 seconds. Alastair had an app on his phone that recorded his skiing, and it showed we'd done some 60 or 70 kilometres by 3pm, when our legs told us we'd had enough. We'd reached the point when they were getting rubbery, and the quality of the skiing was suffering. So back down to the bottom, onto the shuttle and to our apartment by about 4pm. Nice and early.
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| Karen (left), John (middle), Alastair's friend Simon (right) |
Being in Japan, it was time for our first onsen, of many no doubt. About $10 buys you the opportunity to strip naked, sit on a tiny plastic stool, wash then rinse yourself, then lie back around the edge of a rock-edged pool in the lovely warm spring water. Even better, another few yen in a vending machine buys a can of beer to take with you!
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| Niseko Yukoro Onsen |
At the end of a day's skiing, the onsen was a welcome relief to tired legs. We'd done very well. Both of us felt we had skied as well as we ever have, and Karen kept up with the rest of us with no problem.
We woke up in remarkably good shape in the morning. I think we had expected to be more stiff and sore, but perhaps all the fitness preparation we'd done in the preceding weeks had worked out well. Up on the slope again we had a lot of fun. The legs were a little more tired, but the technique was better. Both of us skied well and fast, and had a great time. However by lunchtime we were ready for a break. The amount of skiing we did was immense - the break between runs is so little. We tried a number of new runs, but ended up going back to the gully we'd enjoyed the day before. At the 3pm mark, we decided we'd got to the point that we were not improving, and our technique was suffering - just the time injuries and accidents happen. The light had suddenly got very flat too, so we decided to stop for the day. A good move, as the cloud came down and would have made conditions much more difficult. Back down to the base station, and a shuttle back down into the town.
It was a pleasure getting our ski boots off back at the apartment - they are horrible to walk in. We shuttled back up to the hire place to drop our kit off, as we had decided that a third day wouldn't benefit us much. Great fun being back on skis, and in a totally different location to New Zealand. Quite exciting too to have that phase of our trip over and to move onto seeing the real Japan.
Dinner was an excellent one at a little place close to our apartment.