Conditions Report
Report from Saturday, January 18
Today, I skied the deepest run of my life.
It was over waist height.
And I don’t mean it was spraying up over my waist. I was skiing in three feet of snow over my waist.
Deep, light, fluffy powder.
Effortless, bouncing turns.
Face shots and wide grins.
We started our day with the Ace gondola, followed by the King Hooded Quad #3. Then, after riding the infamous pizza box chair, we ditched our plan to hike to the peak. Judging by the line trudging up ahead of us, it’d be skied out once we got there; not worth the 30-minute or more hike. Instead, we traversed skiers’ left and skied 12″ of fresh snow. It was a little tracked out, but there were still little pockets to hit. This set the scene for the rest of the day.
That took us to gate G5, at the top of the Hanazono Hooded Quad #3. As we entered, most people were heading left and round. We decided to ski straight off the face into the trees.
It was deep. Waist deep. I wasn’t expecting it, and it almost caught me off guard.
We kept skiing through the trees, staying parallel to the gulley, and found knee-to-waist-high snow. This was at 10:30-11 a.m. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been skied off.
- Related: Niseko United, Japan, Report: Great Conditions and Excellent Skiing at a Bucket List Destination
It was so good that we did a do-over. Straight back up and through G5 again, taking a slightly different line, we continued to find outrageously deep snow.
The second time around, we carried on and (after a short hike) skied down Miharashi. Deep, forgiving, powder moguls. Rock star bumps.
This is Niseko at its very best. Despite the Saturday crowds (which, to be fair, weren’t too bad; the lift lines move pretty quickly), we could find deep, untracked snow all over the mountain. Even the pistes still had knee-deep powder on them after noon.
We kept dipping into tree runs just off the main runs and finding untracked, deep snow all day.
The sky was blue, the temperature was perfect, and there was no wind. If Carlsberg did ski days…
The reports say we had 14″ of fresh snow overnight, on top of the 10″ the previous day, for a total of 38″ in the last five days. It skied way more than this.
Our only mistake was after going through gate G9. We kept going too far and traversing parallel to the gulley for far too long. Thankfully, others before us had already broken trail, so we knew we were on the right track. But it was an unnecessary diversion that took about 30 minutes longer than needed.
If you like powder–deep powder–Niseko is your paradise. The rumors are true. Book your powder pilgrimage. If you have an Ikon Pass, you only need flights and a bed to sleep in. What’s stopping you? You won’t regret it.
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