Breakfast was provided at Niseko Freedom Inn. We had the option of Bacon or Sausages with sunny side up or scrambled eggs. Toast, cereal, butter, jam, milk and orange juice was also available. We quickly had our breakfast, and headed to the slopes.
By the time we arrived at the slopes it was almost 10AM. Since our body was aching everywhere, we decided to take it easy. I started off by trying to teach Eelin how to snowboard, facing the hill, or what I call toeside. In theory it was just the opposite of what she has been very comfortable doing, snowboarding with the hill behind her or hillside.
After a few falls and laughter, we head up the slopes. The weather remains the same as the day before... cold... extremely cold... expected temperature was about -10°C. With wind-chills the temperature was expected at about -18°C!! OMG!!
We spent most of our days at the Hanazono side. In fact, we spent almost 90% of our time on the same green run, Silver Dream. Eelin wasn't too confident in trying the more advance run, and I was a little concern about her ability.
I did however decided to try a red run (advance)... little did I realised that, the red run is nothing like the blue runs I encountered in Australia.... it was extremely steep... luckily I manage to get through it safely...
I soon realised what the numbers on the ski maps mean. The first number in degrees is the max inclination, the second is the average inclination and the last number is the ski run in meters.
It looks something like 23°/11°/3020m.
The rule of thumb is to look at the first one, because I reckon anything more than 25° looks like a death wish.... maybe its just me... feeling old.... The green runs mostly had a max inclination of about 20°.
The other thing that snowboarders have to worry about doing the green runs is that it has plenty of flat areas (flats). So if you are a snowboarder, keep the momentum and speed up as you wouldn't want to be stranded at the flats.
To truly enjoy the powder, you'll have to do runs that most people aren't doing!! I realised that the green runs had decent amount of powder, but when I visited the red runs, it was excellent. Most of the areas was untouched, and since not many people visited those runs, the hill was all to yourself!!
The other tip to enjoy fresh powder.... ski after lunch, say at about 2PM. Most people are having their lunch, and the hill will probably have accumulated about 1-2" of snow during that period.
The last tip of the day is to always rent a helmet... I had to learnt the hard way as I had a concussion on my last ski trip while in Australia (6 years ago). I had partial amnesia with the scene looking alot like the Groundhog Day movie as I was just repeating myself every couple of minutes... asking the same questions as I couldn't remember anything from a few minutes ago!! Funny if you asked me.... irritating as hell if you asked my friends!!
Again we ended our day at about 3:30PM as the shuttle service was scheduled to pick us up at 4PM. We returned our gears.... sad that we only had 1.5 days to snowboard....
Did we regret not booking a few extra nights? Since we only had 10 days in Japan, we were fortunate to even have allocated 2 full days to enjoy the snow... so no regrets... at least we had a taste and experience of skiing in Niseko!
Honestly to enjoy the slopes, one should book for at least 3 nights, allowing 2.5 days to enjoy the powder. Ideally, > 5 days... first 1-2 days to get yourself warmed up or if you are a beginner, to acquire the basic skills. And the next few days to explore the whole mountain!
Is skiing/boarding in Japan cheaper than Australia? You be the judge...
The following are what we paid each for our ski lift tickets and gears for 2 days.
- Ski Lift tickets = ¥6600/each (2 days)
- Boots & Snowboard hire = ¥7500/each (2 days)
- Helmet hire = ¥1500/each (2 days)
The prices at Niseko has been rising over the years. This is due to the foreign investors buying up lodges, setting up ski gear rentals shops as well as provide lots of ski lessons and other facilities.
In that 2 days that I was there, I reckon about 70% of the slopes are filled with Aussies. This I had realised when I was searching for accommodation over the internet... most of these websites had an Australian address and telephone number! During our lunch, I felt that I was in Aussie.... surrounded mainly by Australians, with very few Asians or Japanese.
Onsen again.... yes we really enjoyed the Onsen experience... nothing beats soaking in a hot spring water after a long day at the slopes!
Like the night before, Matt had recommended a place to have our meals at Kutchan. Click here to read more about our Yakotori experience.... highlight was the biggest scallop I have ever eaten!
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