This is the first in a hopefully semi-regular series of updates about conditions in central Hokkaido and wherever else we end up touring. It’s easy to have grand plans about updating the website, but those plans pretty quickly fall away in the thick of guiding, exploring, and riding good lines. So if you don’t see an update for a while, that probably means the snow is good and we’ve prioritised “information gathering” over sitting in front of the laptop.
This update will cover:
The general conditions in the hills
Where we’re finding good riding
What hazards we’re thinking about
DISCLAIMER: This isn’t a formal avalanche forecast and the information contained here isn’t a suitable basis for decision making about safe travel in the backcountry. You’ll need to make your own assessment of conditions. That will require adequate skills, experience, and equipment, so either make sure you have all those things or hire a guide who does (might we suggest… us?). We can only cover a fraction of the backcountry areas in our day-to-day operations and conditions can change quickly. This information is a general guide to the conditions and should be only the start of your planning and decision making process for having a safe and enjoyable day in the hills.
General Conditions Update
If you’re following the 2020 winter online, you’ve probably heard that conditions in Hokkaido have been thin, or that we’ve had a slow start to the season. That’s true, but it probably doesn’t mean what you think. A dry/thin season by Hokkaido standards has plenty of awesome riding. Aside from one sunny day where we chose to climb Asahidake, we’ve skied good quality dry pow every day (according to one guest from Boulder CO who just skied the deepest run of her life: “A bad season in Hokkaido is better than a good season in Colorado”).
It’s not all doom and gloom.
But conditions have been and are unusual in the following ways:
Some areas with lots of bushes aren’t sufficiently filled in and are no fun to ride. At the moment, the good riding is in areas where the vegetation is more sparse - open areas or mature forest with big, well-spaced trees. That has cut down on the number of good touring locations so far this season.
We’ve had an unusual number of sunny days. I think there has been more sunny days in January to date than there were in all of Jan and Feb last year. That’s made for some nice days to ski in the alpine. It has also made for more solar affect on south aspects - we have layers of suncrusts that we normally don’t see in Hokkaido. The sun is pretty weak in January so easterly aspects are still riding well, and obviously northerly aspects are fine.
That clear weather has led to some surface hoar formation. Again, we typically don’t see much surface hoar here but this season is unusual. We’ve observed buried surface hoar in low mountains northwest of Asahikawa that was extremely reactive while we were there.
The increase in sunny days (including a few days of relatively warm temps), clear nights, more varied weather, and thinner snowpack has made avalanche conditions more dangerous this winter. Hokkaido’s reputation for safe snow comes from its consistent weather and deep snowpack. You can’t rely on that this winter - you need to be tracking conditions, paying attention to the environment and checking the snowpack before you launch into avalanche terrain.
It’s probably good to remember that we’re not competing for tracks. With less snow than normal I imagine that there have been times around the major resorts where it was hard to find fresh turns. But in the backcountry where it’s unusual to see another group the skiing has been good and we’ve been using the sunny weather to check out a bunch of new faces to ride.
In summary: Take the rumors you hear with a grain of salt: A bad season in Hokkaido is still very, very good. There has been plenty of awesome skiing in the backcountry, but the unusual conditions have made for a more dangerous snowpack than we normally have here. Make smart, safe decisions and don’t rely on Hokkaido’s reputation or blindly follow other people’s complacency.
Where is the good riding?
We’re finding the best conditions in northern central Hokkaido. This area and the Kamui Mintara range have both received pretty good snow, but the Kamui Mintara range (which includes Asahidake, Tokachidake and Furanodake) is a lot busier so it tracks out. South faces have had a bit of suncrust, so we’ve been skiing mostly east faces. North faces are also skiing well, but most of the good north facing terrain is quite bushy and yet to fill in, or is in the alpine and hard to access without good weather and/or a long-ish approach. More north faces will be accessible once Kurodake reopens on the 1st of Feb.
We’re mostly skiing below the treeline (around 1400m), with quite a few days down low (below 1000m) to avoid the wind. But this season hasn’t been particularly windy and there have been a number of good days in the alpine. It’s rare to get good snow and good weather up there so that’s one advantage of the unusual conditions this winter.
The eastern Daisetsuzans are also looking pretty good! These were super thin all last winter so it has been good to get back out there. With the big dump of snow we’ve just had I suspect some of the bigger north facing lines out there will be in awesome condition.
One of the most annoying consequences of the relatively low snow year is creek crossings. There are way fewer snow bridges than normal and they’re much weaker. Take care on your crossings. It’s worth spending a little more time finding a better route. That also means that creeks are more open than normal. Be extra careful trying to travel along drainages (this is generally a bad idea in Hokkaido, but even more so this season than normal).
In summary: Things are good in the backcountry. Ski easterly or northerly aspects and look for open (not bushy) terrain. I’ve got no idea what they’re like at the ski resorts. Watch out crossing or following creeks.
What hazards are we thinking about?
As mentioned above, there are a few layers in the snowpack that we don’t normally see in Hokkaido. Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve seen this winter:
Starting at the bottom: Early season we had a widespread layer of facets, 20-50cm deep depending on elevation and location. This had between 0 and 20 cm of new snow on it when I arrived at the end of December, with a melt-freeze crust and no new snow below around 700m. I was seeing some movement on this crust-facet combination in early January (size 0.5 slides on steep, unsupported slopes and collapsing with shooting cracks in isolated pockets) but that seems to have settled down as that layer has been buried more deeply.
Above that the main issue is faceting associated with clear weather. Prior to this last major storm I was keeping an eye on the layer associated with the clear weather on January 15th. In some areas (especially NW of Asahikawa) there’s buried surface hoar from this event. This was super touchy (remote triggering from a single skier) when I was in the area a few days later. Elsewhere there’s about 1cm of 1mm facets between the Jan 15th layer and the following snowfall that was producing stubborn shears. Test slopes were still sliding on this layer prior to the current storm (winding up now). There are suncrusts above this layer that might be an issue with the new loading we’re getting.
As usual, there’s plenty of storm slabs forming as soon as we get any wind with the new snow.
Also as usual, we’re seeing plenty of sluffing. This is really common in Hokkaido (even though you’ve heard it’s flat and has no terrain) but it’s easy to get complacent. I got knocked off my feet by a sluff two weeks ago (fortunately I wasn’t above a terrain trap) which was has reset my concern-o-meter. Let my mistake be your lesson. Sluffs kill people here. Take care.
In summary: Generally speaking, the most common primary hazard is still storm slabs, but we’re seeing layers (buried surface hoar, faceting around crusts) that can persist in the snowpack and cause more destructive avalanches that are more difficult to predict. Make sure you’re monitoring those layers and making appropriate terrain choices.