At last the day had come - we were heading to the mountains to ski/board. We were told that if you want to ski Japan, its either Niseko (in the far north) or Hakuba (home of the 1998 Winter Olympics). We had heard that the powder in these resorts is uncomparable to anywhere in the world. We opted for Hakuba due to its proximity to Tokyo and the fact we only have a week or so left on our train passes and Niseko was more of a complicated long journey.
As we left Matsumoto, we were a little worried as there was no snow on the mid mountains and only a spec on the summits. Our fears didn't last long when the train veard into a valley and the whole landscape changed. No longer could you see green fields and houses - all you could see was white. The amount of snow was incredible, this wasn't even in the hills but down in the towns around the valley - we had no idea how the train made it through some of the passes. It was a very cool train ride.
We reached Hukuba and were staying at Mt Hakuba backpackers - bad move! From the outside the building looks lovely, all covered in snow and actually of good size. We were always taught never judge a book by its cover - the backpackers is dingy, dark, exceptionally univiting and pretty minging - to use an old English phrase. Our room had 2 sets of bunkbeds as close together as possible, and had shot glasses and half eaten breakfast cereals already there waiting for us... RANK! The toilet doors were so close to where you sat, you couldn't get up without hitting yourself and its freezing in the hallways/common areas. The guy who runs it is also really creepy! and got all our equipment rentals wrong and the advertised latest gear is crappy. Megan actually had to hire elsewhere as he was so disorganised. Personally Dave thinks he had a problem with women in general - but what a creep... As you can see we hated this backpackers, but unfortunately had already booked so couldn't get out of staying there. The other factor was it was full of drunk australian kids so sleeping was very interupted due to noise and snoring! The town itself is quite beautiful, coated in huge amounts of snow and little restaurants and cafes scattered all over - very pretty.
Anyhow onto the skiing, we had day one at the main mountain called Happoone. The biggest hill in the region has a lot of terrain but the weather was a big factor, lifts were constantly closed due to winds and nearer the top the temperature must have dropped to minus 20 at least... The powder that we had heard so much about, was ok but it hadn't had a big dump for a while so most of it was skiied in. Honestly it was alright but not as amazing as we had been told. Megan had a great day though - skiing like a pro now.
Second day we went to another mountain called Hakuba 47, now this is where Dave came into his element. Swapping his skis for a board, it snowed all day and night so the powder here was very fresh. It was less cold but worse visability. The snow however near the top was immense - we were on occassions upto our knees in powder. Dave got stuck at one point and upon falling on his arse had to wade out of the powder drift - so funny to watch!
We found the Japanese Alps to be good for both skiing and boarding, but it doesn't really compare to the resorts in Canada. The powder is so fresh and a lot fluffier and lighter than places like Whistler, but the variety and length of runs is uncomparable. All in all we had a great time on the slopes, but wouldn't book a ski/board holiday here over North America or Europe. Its fun to try and we would come back definately but probably when we come back to Japan as a whole.
We were also told that Niseko had not had any snow the whole week, so we definately made the right choice.
We felt very sad leaving here, as it is so pretty, but were very relieved to leave the backpackers.