Japan Special: Ski Round-up by Arnie Wilson

The snow fell deeply in the Japan Alps last winter. Until well into March it was piling high on rooftops and roadsides as well as on the ski-slopes, sending the snow-monkeys hurrying off for their traditional hot bath in steaming onsens. Just before visiting Kambayashi Ski and Snowboard Park in Northern Nagano’s Shiga Heights, I took a morning off from the slopes above Yamanouchi to visit some of these celebrated macaque monkeys, nonchalently hugging each other and soaking themselves in the steaming hot springs at Jigokudani yaen-koen (Hell’s Valley Park).

Of the two parks, Hell’s Valley seemed infinitely more relaxing. Although visitors are warned that the wild “snow monkeys” – red of face and bottom – can be quite aggressive, they seemed to be on their best behaviour. It occurred to me that these rather endearing creatures, surrounded by primates with clothes and cameras, might have some fun wandering up to the snowboard park to study their human cousins at play, doing aerobatics in the Olympic Halfpipe.

Snowboarders have brought many changes recently to the country’s ski philosophy. Their “grunge” approach has helped tone down the almost absurdly colourful kaleidoscope of Japanese ski wear. Although the snow monkeys still favour red, dark colours are in this year. Those once ubiquitous garish yellow and orange ski suits are now quite rare and look dated.

More interestingly, snowboarders have spearheaded an unprecedented move to escape from the restrictions of the gelande (piste) and, whenever they can, swarm off-piste into the trees – much to the alarm of traditionalists for whom this is anaethma. Until quite recently, a Japanese skier venturing off-piste would have inspired the kind of reaction captured so well by those Bateman cartoons in which some toe-curling indiscretion provokes shock-horror reactions from the perpetrator’s peers. But as the new millennium aproached, it was almost as if a signal went out to re-programme skiers’ thinking. Thanks largely to snowboarders, and abundant fresh snow topping up the slopes faster than it can be groomed, Japanese skiers have been discovering the joys of powder.

“It’s all happened in the last couple of years” says Tomio Fukumura, a Canadian Japanese who runs a ski school at Kumano Yu Onsen in the extensive Shiga Kogen circuit with his wife Yamato Sachiko, who raced for Japan on the World Cup circuit for eight years. “It’s partly the snowboarders’ influence and partly boredom. Skiers wanted to try something new. See those trees over there? Two years ago, I’d be the only one skiing there. Now everyone’s skiing them.”

Just above his ski school is one of the best runs in the circuit. We caught it after a snowstorm and spent an exhilarating hour or two frollicking in deep powder, skiing in the trees. Last time I was here I would not have dared. Another benefit of the off-piste revolution is that it creates more space. Skiers sticking slavishly to the marked runs tend to make Japanese resorts seem busier than they are, particularly during crowded weeekends. Now the fashion is changing, skiers and snowboarders are skiing far and wide instead of concentrating on the beaten track.

But the Japanese love affair with powder and off-piste may be a double-edged sword. The trend is making Japanes ski areas nervous. At the moment they would rather ban it entirely than get involved in day-to-day judgements about the dangers. Permanent warning signs saying “Because of avalanche danger off-piste is prohibited” are stuck on many lift-towers, but they sense that it it is a loosing battle. After a fresh snowfall, you can now see the tell-tale tracks of a lone-snowboarder – or perhaps two or three - in the trees at almost every major resort. Only a few years ago this would have been almost unthinkable.

Like any other mountain region, the Japan Alps have their share of avalanches. The danger is all too real: four New Zealand skiers on a back-country tour died recently in a slide in the back-country near the Olympic ski resort of Happo One.

Japan has little experience of snow-craft. Unlike most ski nations, there is no tradition of blasting snow-heavy slopes to release dangerous accumulations in the back-country. Until now there was almost no need, as skiing “out-of-bounds” was a rarity. Few Japanese would know how to dig or interpret a snow-profile, in which a snow-pit is dug to analyze the stability of the layers. Few Japanese skiers or snowboarders wear avalanche transceivers – electronic devices which can help rescuers dig out a buried skier or snowboarder.

The off-piste revolution in Japan is now unstoppable, and its ski resorts are going to have to learn an entirely new culture to deal with it.