Skiing the ‘Snowiest Destination in the World,’ in a Remote Corner of Japan
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Loading... - Annisa Wati
- 04 Apr 2023
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An immersion in culture—and waist-deep powder—in the overlooked region of Tohoku.
Tokyo’s skyscrapers give way to fields and pastures as the high-speed bullet train picks up speed, barreling north into the Japanese countryside. I am sitting beside two new friends, Jaime and Alex, who excitedly trade samples of onigiri and different types of sushi they picked up at the train station.
Out the left window, rugged mountains emerge from rolling hills in the distance—the antithesis to the low-angle, forested ski zones I had grown up seeing in Japanese segments of different Warren Miller and Teton Gravity Research ski and snowboard films.
“Do you think that’s Hakuba?” I ask Alex, referring to a valley situated at the base of the Japanese Alps, a popular destination for skiers and snowboarders from around the world.
“Has to be,” he responds, before confirming our hunch on Google Maps.
But the words “popular” and “destination” didn’t belong in a description about the region we are headed to. Instead of Hakuba, or the even more popular island of Hokkaido, which is renowned for having the deepest and driest powder in the world, we are about to spend the next ten days immersed in culture and waist deep snow in Tohoku—a region that many Japanese tourists, let alone international visitors, overlook. (In 2020, the Tohoku region saw just over 400,000 overnight visitors compared to Hokkaido’s nearly 1.8 million.)
“There’s all this fresh powder up here and no one to ski it,” says Brent Potter, owner and guide at Japan Ski Tours, who we are joining for ten days of skiing. “At first it’s awesome, but then it gets a little lonely. Sometimes I worry about these resorts. That’s why we’re trying to get people here.” Read More
