At the Top of Hokkaido

Mark, Lindsay, Max, and I spent this past weekend at the top of Hokkaido, snowboarding (and skiing, I guess, as Max was there) on Asahidake, the tallest mountain in Hokkaido.




Asahidake is the tallest peak in the Daisetsuzan chain, which, in Japanese, is expressed as 大雪山, or, with each character taken literally, Big Snow Mountains. And that would seem an apt name as, even on this warm, melty, second weekend in April, when all but the most icy and dirty glaciers of snow have disappeared, my fears that the melt would have started in Daisetsuzan were permanently silenced by this sight from Furano on the way up:



And the road up to Asahidake started off like this:

But wound up looking more like this:


It was like driving right back into winter (it had snowed the previous night), and I was happy for it as this weird, pre-spring in between weather had been starting to get me down.

I think Max mentioned that the Asahidake parking lot was at the same elevation (or higher) as the top of the gondola on Hirafu, and it was only up from there. Though the single ropeway that services the mountain all season doesn't reach as high as the mountain's summit (at 2216m), It still got us good and high, leaving us with fantastic views on this bluebird day and fantastic snow on the way down.



I realize now that this will, likely, be the last mountain that Mark, Lindsay, and I ride together for perhaps a good long while, so in honour of our merry little band of three musketeers, here are some shots of us at our finest:





Between the forests of evergreens (a tree I hadn't realized I missed on Hokkaido's other birth-choked mountains) and the stupendous scenery all around, I kept exclaiming to anyone who would listen that I could happily live on this mountain, and about the only complaint I could come up with was that I wished the mountain's higher, lightly-treed climbs could go on forever without yielding to the flatter, forested paths below.








Regardless, It was still choose-your-own-adventure snowboarding at its finest, and despite only getting in four full runs on the mountain (due to realities of driving the 3+ hours from Ishikari Saturday morning, and the only-every-20-minutes ropeway schedule at the mountain), it really felt like we'd spent all day on those slopes.











And, least there be any doubt, we rode that mountain 'til close: heading up on the last of the ropeway cars (16:40), and getting down through the now-icy forested runs as the staff were closing up shop in the main building.



EDIT:
Adding this video of boarding Asahidake as Friend And Fellow Canadian Sam put it together herself to showcase her boyfriend (the mountain).



After that, all that was left was to head to the onsen before moving on to BBQ with the phenomenal Mark Mowbray, who'd be playing host to us in Furano.




(The mountainous paradise where Mark Mowbray lives)

It was a fantastic weekend, allowing me to do a couple of things I wanted to make sure I got to before leaving Hokkaido in August.



2010-2011 Mountain Day 19