The snow dreams are made of…

It’s been an snowy 2010/2011 winter season so far for everybody at Holiday Niseko and our guests staying in our accommodation. Snowboarding and skiing the inbounds powder on Niseko’s slopes has been awesome awesome awesome. Going on day tours, dropping lines in Hokkaido’s national park backcountry and riding the Hanazono park has been epic as well. It’s all good up here! We had so many bottomless days in January and February with our three week mega storm that piled us up past the 4 meter level in town. +Way more up top. With all the gnarly sasa(bamboo grass) covered early January and Niseko trees fully filled in, the mountain became a giant snow-pillow playground park. It’s been a motivating month of getting the house up early, digging the car out and beating the crowds to the lifts to rip the special zones. A lot of days have started early up on Annupuri riding powder lap circuits and circling like sharks until the access gates opened up the back bowls. Days of dropping high speed powder runs down steep bowls, hitting a drop or two, then slashing the best gully hits back to the bottom. Repeat.

popping around Annupuri

Leg burn to earn your turns in Hokkaido's national park

Signage next to the avalanche report(not pictured) at gate 2 of Annupuri

Between Higashiyama’s steeps, Grand Hirafu’s and Hanazono’s trees, everywhere on the mountain was the right place to be. With all the fun in all the snow comes all the dangers and riding in good judgement is tough when the snow is so inviting. Trusting the ski-patrol signage at the gates and reading the daily avalanche bulletins helped keep us in the know with what the snow was doing. Always doing our best in trying to keep the group together even if there are “no friends on a powder day”(your friends are your enemy when too close while ripping through these trees). -Shredding until our legs were burnt, bodies were shaky and riding solely on the stoke, we carried on. Some days we would take that snow energy from the pow mornings and session the NisekoSnowRamsay backyard park after lunch and even shred under Hirafu’s lights at night. Never enough. We welcomed the few sunny days with mirrored lenses in the goggles, turning up the visibility knob to full blast and more full speed powder runs. It’s a nice relief to see the sun and mountains surrounding us… enjoy a biiru and talk a little smack about climbing Mt. Yotei.

Now we are back looking through yellow/clear/pink lenses on our faces and riding in a snow storm again.
Bodacious!
Holiday Niseko

VIP surf style

the staple lunch of ramen. refuel

Ramsay's ever changing backyard park

Last hip in the Ramsay park

Snowy nights under Hirafu's lights

Antti Autti in Niseko

Antti Autti and crew have been up in Niseko on holiday this past week ripping the powder and filming for the “Antiout” movie. Antti snowboards here every year with his Finnish crew and hits up the Sapporo big air in the end of February. Enjoy this clip of this past week! Holiday Niseko

¨Antiout Movie¨ – Hokkaido powder heaven from Anttisworld on Vimeo.

¨Antiout Movie¨- Niseko Powder Peek from Anttisworld on Vimeo.

AntiOut

Sapporo Snow Festival 2011

A few of us from the Holiday Niseko team made the journey to Sapporo for the 62nd snow festival. We jumped in the car with NisekoSnow-Simon and made our way through the mountains and along the coast via hwy 5 to the city center of Sapporo. Parked the car, enjoyed some sushi train and hit the main festival site mid-afternoon. Starting at Odori park, we slowly walked through the 140 snow and ice sculpted statues and temples in complete awe. The impressive work that these artist’s carve into ice and snow was rad to see in the daylight and amazing illuminated at night.

From the open air ice skating rink and walking to the ice museum’s dinosaur world, the next stop was the HTB Park Air snowboard jump show. The local rider throw-down was on. We were told that the winners get a wild card draw to the Toyota Sapporo big air. cool. On the next block was the Kingdom of Tourism sculpture, a warm welcome to Hokkaido with this collaboration between Hokkaido and other Asian countries. A sculpture to promote good relations between locals and visitors.

The Lion King musical sculpture was on the way to the amazing ice city of science and technology, the City of Daejeon in the Republic of Korea. At 7 chome, stood one of the two most impressive pieces in the festival, the HBC Beijing square. Named the temple of heaven and the hall of prayer for goods harvests, it was sculpted in pre-celebration for next years 40th anniversary of good diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and Japan. Awesome scale and detail!

In between two functional large sculptured snow slides and the snowman’s festival of citizen’s square was another very impressive piece. The Hiunkaku pavilion of Nishi Hongan-ji Temple from Kyoto. The national treasure of Japan was sculpted close to actual size and the detail was something you have to see in person. Next we walked to the massive family square statues of the Japanese animation Sazae-san. Sculpted in celebration of the 65th anniversary of the original comic strip, Sazae’s entire family was there.

There was an international gourmet food corner and sake huts to keep people happy and warm, live entertainment on multiple stages and crazy music and lights on some of the statues and sculptures. At the end of Odori park we watched the talent in progress as the 16 international carving contest teams put some finishing touches on their work… Lithuania took the prize and Finland was runner up this year. All layed out under the Sapporo TV Tower free of admission to check out for 7 days every year in early February. This is a must do and see snow festival.

Sazae and family

Imprint Finland

Beijing Sqaure-Hall of prayer for good harvests

Hiunkaku pavilion of Nishi Hongan-ji Temple in Kyoto, carved in snow

Hiunkaku pavilion of Nishi Hongan-ji Temple in Kyoto w/humans

HTB Park Air snowboard session. Rad

Hokkaido tourism sculpture w/light show & crazy music that got us hyped!

Dinosaur ice world

Mizuno-no-Sawa

It’s very forward thinking for Niseko Village (Higashiyama) resort to educate and promote avalanche safety on a zone and it’s dangers, snowpack and terrain traps before allowing access to shredding it. Other resorts around the world should follow in their boot-steps. The steep and deep Mizuno-no-Sawa area is controlled and patrolled, but does not keep you out of powder covered crevasses or self sluff-slide trouble. Having some basic avalanche safety and snowpack knowledge helps in making the right decisions when shredding into gnarly terrain. Sign up for an avalanche skills training course and make a habit to check the Niseko avalanche forecast before venturing out. Enroll in the Mizuno-no-Sawa lecture and rip it! Powderlife magazine has a nice write up on the lecture schedule, costs and general information. HolidayNiseko

powder heaven

Niseko snow removal

With all the powder we have had fun skiing and snowboarding in, there also comes a lot of work to deal with it. The Niseko Grand Hirafu city snow removal crew has been working 24/7 to keep up with the snow this season. Our Holiday Niseko team has been putting in a ton of shoveling as well. With dangerous roof slides constantly filling in our walk-ways, we are always on alert and looking up as we clear snow. There were even days last week when we had to mark the car so the plow would not hit it! Niseko city did a great job in cleaning up the street in front of our Holiday Niseko office, Asuka, Yukon and the Seshu. Now our guests have a little more space to walk about, cars can pass by each other again and we are ready for more snow. Sweet!

clearing up our street in front of the Yukon, Asuka and the Seshu

Hiromi's car is under that snow- marked with a pole

Holiday Niseko Seshu

Niseko Snow Sun and Powder Fun

Mt. Yotei gets some sun after a 2 meter snow storm

The storm settled and the sun is showing us what the huge snowfall has done to our Hokkaido landscape. Mt. Yotei is looking loaded with snow as is the rest of the Niseko area. After riding days of tree lines through the storm, it’s so good to see where we are snowboarding again. The backcountry access gates in Hanazono, Hirafu, Higashiyama and Annupuri opened up and skiing and snowboarding here is all time! We are enjoying the sun because the forecast is more snow tonight and through next week. Holiday Niseko

Holiday Niseko Accommodation Snowed-in!

Our Holiday Niseko office is snowed in as well as all of our accommodation in Grand Hirafu! But with amazing effort of snow removal, guests are able to get out to ski and snowboard the deep powder with ease this Chinese New Year. The last days of this month have shown everyone what Hokkaido Japan can do and January 2011′s snow depths have buried last season’s mark! Base depths around the Niseko are deeper than normal for this time of year and the village is hyped.

2 meter dump at the Holiday Niseko office

It’s February 1st and the current snow depths are 300cm at the top station of Annupuri, 400cm up top Niseko Village and 450cm on top of Grand Hirafu and Hanazono! The upper lifts have been closed for days due to no-visibility and high avalanche danger from the three day super storm. The steeps and trees in the lower to mid-mountain have kept everyone happy with this 2 meters of fresh powder! hint… (Niseko Gondola to Superstition and Mori-No chair to Misoshiru)

Niseko Village goods!

It will be powder heaven when the weather chills and Niseko United starts running the top lifts and opening the gates! Holiday Niseko

Chinese New Year! 农历新年

It’s a big week for us at Holiday Niseko and everybody else up here in Grand Hirafu, Niseko Village and Annupuri in celebration of the deep powder and the events surrounding the Chinese New Year! Events like skiing and snowboarding the 50cm of new snow that blessed us yesterday and enjoying your surroundings. Getting out with friends or family and reflecting on what you believe in the most. Niseko’s 2011 week long forecast for the celebration of Chinese New Year is snowy and these are the days to remember… We are keeping these days in our heads, because trying to snap a photo is hard to do when flying through snowy life.

Ace Quad 2 - powder laps.

3 meters deep and more to come!

Niseko’s snow depth has hit the 3 meter mark and the forecast is powder-gold for more snow this week! The current snow conditions for everyone out snowboarding, skiing and staying with us at Holiday Niseko are amazing! +Plus great snow-base now for our future guests! The backcountry access gates 1 (L-ji), 4 (Fujiwara) and 6 (Moiwa) have opened and the Niseko Avalanche report suggests using great caution when venturing out there. It’s shaping up to be another all time snow season!

Happy Holidays!

It was a cold white Christmas and Niseko celebrated on the slopes and in town! Currently 21 lifts are running to get you up skiing or snowboarding and most of the inbound-terrain is on! The snow forecast for next week looks good and should bring in the 2011 at the 2 meter+ mark. Snowboard and Ski events are happening in Hanazono and the lively pulse of the local bars and restaurants are going off after the day on the slopes ends. Celebrate!

Happy Holidays from Holiday Niseko