Getting ready to slide around the trees. Photo / Unsplash
Going off-piste, Cat Weakley discovers bowing attendants at ski lifts, fabulous food and legendary powder in the Japanese winter.
There are so many things I didn't know before I skied in Japan. Among others, that a taxi driver in Toyko will willingly jam a pair of 180 powder skis into his boxy saloon car, that KitKats come in flavours from strawberry to wasabi and green tea, and that en suite bathrooms are overrated — give me communal (though politely segregated) onsen hot-pool ablutions any time.
However, the one thing I was aware of was Japan's reputation for light powdery snow that falls regularly all winter, thanks to storms that willingly drop it as they sweep in over the mountains from the Sea of Japan. It's the island of Hokkaido that most regularly features on ski and snowboard bucket lists — its biggest resort, Niseko, is famed for 15m or more of snowfall each year. But by opting to ski on the main island, Honshu, my friends and I could more easily add other wishes from our Japan list to the two-week trip. City stopovers, travel by shinkansen bullet trains with their beautiful swanlike heads, visits to ancient temples, the Jigokudani snow monkey park.
The Hakuba and Myoko ski areas are in the Nagano and Niigata prefectures respectively, both within easy train reach of Tokyo via the 1998 Winter Olympic city of Nagano. First stop, Myoko, and we are the only people on the slow connecting train from Nagano to the small access town of Myoko Kogen with ski bags; at 5.30pm others look like they are going home from work.
The journey only takes an hour, but as we chug lethargically on, the snow is falling increasingly thickly, fuelling our excitement. Then, one stop before Myoko Kogen, at the tiny station of Kurame, the train stops.
Eventually, we figure out that the train is done for the night. And when we see a deep pile of powder on the track ahead, we understand why. The few remaining passengers gather in a tiny waiting room, uniformed officials talk fast and gesticulate, a local journalist turns up and asks if we're annoyed about the snow (No!). And finally the news comes that free taxis are being organised, so we can complete our journeys.
It's all part of a beautifully polite and helpful culture that also means we are welcomed on to every ski lift, often with a bow as well as a greeting, and why that taxi driver in Tokyo was so accommodating with my skis. This driver piles our skis on top of his van, then barrels through the snow at hair-raising speed towards our final stop, Akakura Onsen, one of the Myoko area's five ski hills.
Named after its highest mountain, Myoko-san, 2454m, Myoko claims 19m of snow annually. And it's all over the streets as we arrive, covering cars, crunching underfoot, swirling from the dark sky and making brightly lit signs look even more exotic in contrast. The five of us wander the main street, deciding where to eat; there's a lot of feasting to do. Ramen noodle bowls, yakitori barbecue, sushi ... the choice makes my mouth water, though smoked fish and pickles along with eggs at the Akakura Hotel Annex's ample breakfast buffet is rather unnerving at first.
There are novel drinks to try, too: highballs — Japanese whisky and soda with a fruit flavour of choice — in a pint glass or a stein; cold sake in place of wine with dinner; sweet yet sharp plum wine as a digestif, or an aperitif; and plenty of locally brewed beer.
There's Japanese powder to enjoy next morning, on the linked slopes of Akakura Onsen and its neighbour Akakura Kanko.
Their ski area is not particularly challenging, just a couple of steep black runs, but who cares when our first forays involve sliding around birch trees surrounded by billowing snow?
Being able to see through the trees makes route-finding easier than through alpine firs, and the endless repetition of white and black bark and flying snow is mind-emptyingly mesmerising.
Signs on the slopes warn that going outside the area boundary is at your own risk, although hiking above the ropes is permitted with a guide, and posters in mountain restaurants illustrate the terrible consequences of disobeying.
Yet the cartoon stories are so charmingly rendered we can't help but laugh. How bad it would be, they speculate, to get stuck under a tree while skiing alone, only to be found months later by a weeping friend, as the tree blooms with life overhead.
Days later, in Hakuba, off-piste rules are similar — we're told lift passes will be confiscated if we stray into forbidden areas. It's a big place, 10 ski areas spread along a valley, linked by a lift and a shuttle bus that runs into the night. We're staying in under-the-radar Norikura/Cortina, furthest from the best known Hakuba area, Happo-One. There may not be streets of bars and restaurants as in Happo, but Cortina has lots of tree runs, and the rules for heading off-piste are more relaxed.
We're staying in the First Tracks Lodge, with an easygoing atmosphere and easy access to the gentle apron of slopes at the bottom of Norikura. Beautifully groomed pistes lead to the huge, incongruous, red-roofed, half-timbered Green Plaza hotel at the base of Cortina, before we head up and into the trees.
Up a double chairlift we reach a broad, forested valley and ski it repeatedly, charging over untouched powder between perfectly spaced trees over and over, before dragging ourselves away to explore more runs off the back of Cortina, and higher up on Norikura.
The resorts' compact piste maps belie the extent of possibilities — so much so that we hardly feel the need to explore Hakuba's other areas. But we do have to go to Tsugaike, where the ski patrol runs a safety briefing that entitles students to dive into extensive areas of trees that seem to take us miles from the long, wide pistes.
Tsugaike is also where we often take the night bus out to eat or drink. At Kushibe, after some instruction, we construct okonomiyaki pancakes on the hotplate in the middle of our table, shaping and scraping, flipping and decorating ingredients into a messy but satisfying circle. At Cloche we quiz barman Ken about his huge range of sake and plum wine, and his ceremonial sword, hanging on the wall above the bar.
In Happo-One we splash out on tempura and sushi around a sunken table in a private room at Wash-iya, then hit a clubby bar, just catching happy hour in the nick of time.
And every night the bus rolls up in the snowy dark streets, right on time, to take us home.
But it's at Seki Onsen in Myoko that we have the best food of the trip and the powder day that bucket-list dreams are made of. Following rumours that this tiny ski area with just two chairlifts, a double followed by a single seater, is the first beneficiary of storms, we taxi over there. A small queue builds before the lifts open, fat skis and off-piste gear looking out of place at a base that's just a hut for tickets and stickers, with a hairdryer outside for clearing goggles of snow.
We spend the next hour or so lapping the double chair, finding lines between trees, floating through deeps, occasionally hearing muffled shouts as everyone spreads out across the two valleys. The lift provides drifting respite as it moves lazily through trees while we're on it, and a landmark inside the ping-pong ball of this relentlessly snowy day as we ski down. Just as home-made noodles and veg-stuffed miso soup in Taube (the one place to eat on the mountain) are calling, there's a commotion at the bottom of the single-seat lift. The ski patrol has finally dug it out — and we are among the first to ride it.
It edges up over a pristine steep powder field at a snail's pace. As I near the top, the first skiers come down, barely visible in the deeps, their ecstasy evident from the pluming tails of snow and sounds of joy. I laugh with them, kicking my skis excitedly in barely contained anticipation of the over-my-head snow thrills to come. Lunch will have to wait.
GETTING THERE
Air NZ flies daily from Auckland to Tokyo.
DETAILS
For more about ski resorts in Nagano and Niigata, including hotels, visit classic-resorts.jp
The trendy spot is just six minutes from the Waikiki beach.