If you’ve been keeping up to date with Snowbrains.com, then you know founder and CEO Miles Clark has been living a skiers dream out in the Land of The Rising Sun. As I sit here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, watching ski resort after ski resort reduce their operations due to rising temperatures, I can’t help but feel a certain way towards my boss……. what’s that word, oh right jealousy. Yes call it jealously or whatever, but when mother nature isn’t cooperating during the winter, sometimes I have to live vicariously through somebody else’s joy.

Another person that decided to make the trip to Japan, is a former work colleague of mine and local Washington rider Jackson Dove. “If you look hard enough, you’ll find the POW” he likes to state on his Instagram photos. Instead of complaining about the warm temperatures in the west coast, he packed up his bags and went were the snow is. I’ve ridden with many people in my life, and I can easily say he’s one of the best skiers I know. He doesn’t ride professionally but that’s probably because he chooses not to. The guy can just flat out ski.

Jackson created a full on edited video of his Japanese adventure. Besides the few times I’ve skied with him, I’ve always enjoyed reading his trip reports on the TGR forums. Sometimes I wonder if he’s also not a ski journalist because he chooses not to be. For those of you already hurting this winter, maybe it’s not the best idea to watch this film as it will only make you more upset. For me, I’m just a glutton for punishment and will use this as motivation to make a future Japan ski trip happen in my near future.

Instead of summarizing his trip report, I feel the best thing to do is just have it come from his own words. When you’re done reading his trip report watch his other videos on his Vimeo Page. You’ll see his other trips from Jackson Hole, Snowbird, Mt. Baker to the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia.

Jackson Dove Japan Ski Trip 2015

“Our adventure to Japan this year started with a quick visit to Kathryn’s sister’s family in Toyko then on to Hokkaido where we rented a 4wd diesel van a road tripped for 15 days visiting the Niseko area, Sapporo, Daisetzuzan National Park and Sounkyo Gorge. Hokkaido delivered and we were greeted to new snow almost every day, amazing food, hospitality, and stunning scenery. We split our days between hot lapping pow at the popular resorts and donning skins to explore areas off the beaten track.

We started out the first few days in the Niseko area, skiing the Niseko and Moiwa resorts and touring near Goshiki Onsen that ended the day with a relaxing soak in the hot spring. An attempt at summiting the irresistible Mt. Yotei, the strato-volcano that dominates the landscape around Niseko, was thwarted when a blizzard rolled in after noon. No choice but to turn around and ski 3000 ft of north facing deep powder, we returned to find 6 inches of snow accumulated on the van in a span of 3 hours.

Then it was on to downtown Sapporo for New Years and laps at the local hill, Teine followed by touring near the coastal town of Asari the next day. A late night back in Sapporo had us looking for a dinner spot after most everything was closed. We should have stuck to the 24 hr convenience stores that we were used to that had plenty of options from Ramen to Sushi. Instead we played roulette and went into a small Japanese bar/restaurant. We sat down and the menu was entirely in Japanese without any pictures. Not wanting to be rude and starving we ordered some beers and randomly pointed to some things on the menu. The first plate out was obviously an appetizer and had two whole sardines deep fried in tempura, two snail shells and two fried chicken wings.Next came a bowl of cold strange creamy white stuff that looked like fish guts. Kathryn tried a bite and made a grossed out face. There are not many foods that Kathryn doesn’t like, so I knew it was bad. The waitress then brought a bowl of something else fried in tempura. I tried it first and it was the same creamy white stuff, just deep fried. We decided to cut our gambling losses and pay our check and leave, not knowing having any idea what we had just ate.

We picked up Nick from the train station and continued our way east through another snow storm to Asahikawa and the Asahidake ropeway, a no frills resort with a Snowbird/Jackson Hole-esque tram that take you the majority of the way up an active volcano. Here we had the deepest turns of the trip after touring in a white out. We dropped into a bowl which we thought would drain back to the lift, only to find we were one more ridge over. It was a long schuss back to the base, but worth it for the long run through chest deep, choker, -15 deg C snow. Unfortunately no video of that one, the batteries were too cold!

Next stop was the Sounkyo Gorge and Kurodake ropeway on the other side Daisetsuzan from Asahidake. We’d heard of another ropeway here, similar to Asahidake. Unfortunately it was closed due to high winds. The attendant, too polite to tell us no, only said “opening would be difficult.” Even though it was windy, the sun was out so we decided to drive further east to find something we could ski close to the highway. After a bit of driving, we came through a tunnel and found a nicely spaced treed ridge that we could use to ascend to a bowl. We found a stiff wind slab at the top of the ridge, so we decided to stay in the trees where the powder had stayed more protected. A nice long run took us back to the highway with views that reminded me of the wide valleys of Montana if it weren’t for the conical volcanoes off in the distance.

From Sounkyo Gorge, we then drove south, bypassing the large Furano ski resort that we heard did not take kindly to ducking ropes and skiing off-piste to another active volcano. At the base of Tokachidake, which last erupted in 1989, there are several lodges with natural hot springs that are operated through the winter. When we were at the hostel in Niseko the week before, we asked a Japanese bartender, who spoke English, to call and reserve us a dorm room in one of the lodges, since they only speak Japanese and did not want to attract westerners. This turned out to be a good call, since when we arrived at the onsen, the attendant did not speak any English until I convinced him that we had a reservation at which point he magically spoke fluent English and showed us to our dorm. After we unpacked the van, we decided we had enough time to make a quick tour to Sandan-yama before sunset, a peak at the center of a caldera. This was the first real sunny day we’d had in Hokkaido where it hadn’t snowed and we’d spent most of the day driving in the van, we were eager to get after it. We reached the top in just enough time to transition and ski down in the alpenglow with stunning views in all directions. Back at the lodge that night we chatted with a couple of older skiers from Nagoya who were also staying at the dorm. Nick asked them how their day way and whether they knew what the weather would be like tomorrow. In broken English, he slowly said, “Tomorrow… tomorrow not like today.” The man was right, as we woke up to heavy snow blowing sideways and the temperature rose throughout the day until it was almost at the freezing level, which turned most of the snow to heavy windslab, and raising the avalanche danger. We stuck to the low-angle dangle and made the most of the weather by exploring the different onsens nearby which were a short tour away.

By the next day the temperature had dropped, and the snow started falling hard again. We toured some laps in the morning then got back in the van to go back to the Niseko area where we knew they would be getting pounded even harder with snow. Little did we know that the drive that should have taken 3 hours would take 8 hours as we drove through a blizzard that shutdown the expressways through Sapporo as well as the airport. We got to Niseko and found several more feet of snow than when we left a week before. It was game on, and we hit up Rusutsu and Kiroro the next few days with 30cm new at Rusutsu, then 60cm at Kiroro with nearly 100 cm fresh on the upper mountain that didn’t open the day before. No time to stop for lunch, we refueled with rice balls in our packs from Seikomart and CalorieMate, the closest thing we could find to an energy bar in Japan.

​That day at Kiroro, Kathryn demoed and fell in love with a Gentemstick, a lightweight swallowtail snowboard handmade in Niseko that Japan is famous for. After riding her splitboard setup both touring and in the resorts the last two weeks, the Gentemstick felt like surfing on a feather through angel-dust.The swallowtail made it maneuverable in the tight trees and big rockered nose gave it float in bottomless snow. She found her soul again on the Gemtemstick and she’ll definitely be getting one in the future.

Finally, the time came when we had to return our beloved Toyota Regius diesel van, which we had put nearly 1600 km on, and hop on a bus back to Sapporo. We had one last night in Sapporo where we met up with a buddy, Cory, for a dinner of jingisukan (grilled lamb) nomehodai style. I met Cory the year before when I went to Japan with some friends and stayed with Cory and his girlfriend. He’s been living the dream the last few years living in Sapporo and shredding the deep snow at Teine on a regular basis. I showed him a photo on my phone of the creamy white stuff we’d had earlier on the trip and he told us it was cod sperm… so gross.

We hopped on the plane back to Seattle the next day and it still continued to dump snow as we taxied out to the runway. See you next year Japan!” – Jackson Dove

Instagram – jackson_dove (Action Jackson)