Asia > Japan > Chubu > Nozawa Onsen > Skiing and winter sports > Articles > Skiing off-piste in Japan

A gradual but irrevocable revolution is starting to percolate through Japan’s ski areas: the act of meandering in deep snow through ubiquitous silver birch rather than sticking to the pistes, or gelande, is no longer regarded as taboo.

The last time I helped myself to some of Japan’s munificent powder – in Nozawa Onsen – I almost got into serious hot water with the authorities rather than the steaming spas at this Honshu ski resort. Tempted by an Austrian who lived there, I had ducked under a rope with him and enjoyed the most idyllic descent that no other soul had skied that winter.

Now, five years later – with an incredible sense of freedom I had never felt before in this rule-obsessed country – I was floating in deep powder through the trees for run after run without having to look over my shoulder. There was no hostile reaction from the ski patrol at Niseko on the snow-covered northern island of Hokkaido. Officially, it had been one of the poorest winters for snow in Japan for years. To us, with recent memories of such a troublesome winter in the Alps, it was simply glorious.

Skiing off-piste has long been anathema to those who run Japan’s ski industry. Apart from the risk of avalanche, quite why they are so strict is unclear. Though it could be like so many things in Japan in that it has “always been this way” – and rules are rules. For the more proud and obdurate of Japanese, it’s a classic cultural conundrum. Linked irrevocably with the country’s economic ills, Japan’s ski industry has suffered considerable setbacks since the early 1990s. Quite a number of resorts have closed.

So the Japanese have set about attracting international guests – particularly snow-starved Australians who have discovered the remarkable snow record of Hokkaido and are even buying ski-in, ski-out lodges, apartments and condominiums. The area, where English is widely spoken, is also becoming popular with New Zealanders and affluent Asian skiers from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. Niseko recently recorded the highest annual land-value increases in the country.

But in many resorts, the Japanese have yet to make up their minds about where they stand on skiing off-piste. Hokkaido’s powder – produced when fearsomely cold winds blowing in from Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula meet humid air in the Sea of Japan – is the main attraction for foreign skiers. Yet, according to Clayton Cannahan, a young Canadian who runs a ski lodge at Niseko and offers escorted ski and snowboard safaris, some resort owners are in turmoil and would rather risk going under than yield to western (or Antipodean) influences.

He cites the Hokkaido resort of Furano as one of the most reluctant to change. At the nearby resort of Rusutsu (it means “where wellness and happiness will stay with you”) things are not quite so clear-cut. Although we rose early to enjoy fresh tracks, reached by the Snowcat, we were accompanied by a watchful member of the ski patrol, and Cannahan made sure we stayed out of trouble – and away from the trees – by remaining on piste. But later in the morning, once we had lost our minder, the usual runs named Heavenly Ridge, Steamboat and Isola Grand were only skied briefly on the uppermost sections before we grabbed the chance to dive into the trees. If you want to explore the pistes rather than the forest, you can do so after dark, when nearly all Japanese resorts offer night skiing.

Niseko – six resorts (three of which are linked and marketed as “Niseko United”) not far from the Sea of Japan coast – has almost given up the struggle. The main resorts of Niseko – Annupuri, Niseko Higashiyama and Grand Hirafu (the focal area for Australian visitors and property owners, who even own some of the lifts) – allow visitors to wander off the beaten track almost at will, or at least turn a blind eye to their forest excursions. Even the extensive Mizuno no Sawa gully beneath the gondola situated just above the futuristic Prince Hotel at Higashiyama is poised to open up to recreational skiers after years of earnest deliberation. And we were officially allowed (ie not stopped) to hike for half an hour to the top of the highest local peak, Annupuri at 1,308m. From here, led by Cannahan, we were able to enjoy a long off-piste descent down the back face while looking over the ocean. The area is not patrolled but at least these days you are allowed to be there. And the low altitude of many Japanese mountains makes “boot-packing” (kicking your way up to a snow-covered peak) much easier. Even Mount Yotei, Hokkaido’s Fuji-lookalike volcano, which dominates the Shikotsu-Toya National Park skyline (when not obscured by a blizzard), is only 1,898m high.

Skiing off-piste will always bring an element of uncertainty. And, according to Cannahan, the large number of Australians who flock to Niseko can be vulnerable because “they are rarely exposed to danger when skiing back in New South Wales and Victoria”. The Snowy Mountains back home rarely pick up great depths of snow, while in Japan there is often so much snow that avalanches are a real possibility. During our visit in February, two Japanese skiers died in an avalanche in Aomori Prefecture, in northern Honshu.

On our last day, the snow was so deep that we could scarcely tear ourselves away from the mountains for a visit to the outstanding snow festival at Sapporo, the Hokkaido capital. We churned our way from one gully to the next, throwing up huge waves of powder, briefly nipping across the piste in between, no doubt startling Japanese skiers as we darted in front of them, spattered head to foot with snow.

Lift operators, used to the ritual of sweeping snow from the chairlifts before you sit on them even when there is no snow on them, will brush you down too if you are still covered in snow from your romps in the forest. After one particular run when a snorkel would have been useful, a companion told me I had “six inches of skiable powder” clinging to my head.

For a country with so much that is state-of-the-art, many of Japan’s ski lifts are strangely old-fashioned. Here and there, they still favour skimpy little single chairs that few Australian visitors had seen before. Was it my imagination or did the quiet humming drone these ancient lifts make sound very much like a didgeridoo?

Savour the shrines and sights of Kyoto

Having come all this way, don’t miss the opportunity to temporarily forsake the mountains and explore Kyoto, which was the imperial capital between 794 and 1868, and one of the only big Japanese cities to escape the bombs at the end of the second world war.

The five-star Hotel Granvia – built on to the impressive and futuristic central railway station – provides a convenient base, with spectacular city views from the 15th floor.

Kyoto has many pockets of the old Japan (though mostly dating from 1600 at the earliest), more than 2,000 temples and shrines, a spectacular fish market, and some of the best food in Japan (which can be surprisingly inexpensive if you stay away from the flashier restaurants). It is also a stronghold of Japan’s celebrated, albeit diminishing, geisha community.

Although it is easy to get an overdose of the shrines and temples, some you simply have to visit. To reach the ancient Kiyomizu-dera (“pure water”) temple and its various halls and shrines high in the hills of the Rakuto area above eastern Kyoto involves a pleasant stroll up Chawan-zaka (Teapot Lane), lined with handicraft and souvenir shops.

The complex includes the Otowa-no-taki waterfall, from which visitors can drink the therapeutic waters in metal cups on the end of long wooden poles that are (in theory) sanitised in between drinkers. The Jishu-jinja shrine includes two “love stones” placed 18m apart. Visitors who manage to walk between them with their eyes closed (they are allowed to listen to instructions but not be physically steered) are said to become lucky in love.

The temple was recently included on the list of candidates for the so-called New Seven Wonders of the World. The Sanjusangendo temple in the Rakuchu district is famous for its 1,001 wooden statues of the Buddhist deity Juichimen-senju-sengen Kanzeon (Goddess of Mercy) and a gigantic Buddha.

And then there’s Pontocho, the city’s traditional nightlife district – a long, narrow cobbled alley teeming with small bars and restaurants as well as geisha houses. Keep your eyes peeled and you may easily spot one or more of these celebrated courtesans by day wandering around the gardens of a shrine or temple.

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