In the world of skiing, "good" can mean a lot of different things.
For me, "good" means shin deep or deeper powder with no tracks and nobody else around in good terrain. But I've come to realise that not everyone thinks the same way.
I ended up working for one of the major guiding companies in the 2023 winter. Japan only reopened their borders after covid in October 2022. It was late enough that I hadn't made plans to run the Powder Project in the upcoming season, so when a friend working at one of the big companies heard they were looking for staff he asked if I was interested. I ended up doing mostly resort guiding. There was a lot of ducking into the trees for a few turns in partly-tracked boot deep pow and then cruising back on a groomer. It wasn't really my scene, but I want to be very clear: They ran a good product, their clients had a good time, and they did a lot of repeat business.
Skiing I think is good.
Did I personally think the skiing was good? No. But did we send lots of clients home with great memories and plans to come back the following year? Absolutely.
And I don't want to shit on that. Not everyone has to like what I like, not everyone wants to walk uphill for the vast majority of their day, and it's great that those folks had a good time. Ski guiding is a job, I'm a professional, I'm glad the guiding team could deliver a quality product.
But I have been thinking about that experience as visitor numbers have boomed in Hokkaido post covid. In my personal opinion, the resorts are overwhelmed. There are huge queues, and there just isn't enough terrain to provide all those visitors with fresh snow for more than a run or two in the morning. Asahidake, once a place where you could get a late start and ski untracked lines all day, is getting skier compacted.
And yet, people keep coming back.
In the backcountry, trailheads that were once quiet are now so busy that parking lots are filling up. There is still genuine untracked powder to be had, and days where you won't see another group, but we are constantly pushing to find new terrain to stay ahead of groups following their friend's brother's hairdresser's GPS tracks.
Are these visitors doing "good" skiing, by my standards? Mostly no. But are they having a good enough time to come back, or recommend Hokkaido to their friends? Mostly yes!
Skiing I think is decent.
And again, that's fine. The backcountry doesn't exist for my benefit. I just need to keep scouting terrain and finding fun new areas.
But it does mean that you need to be careful when someone says something is good on the internet. Do they mean good as in "We spent a week in Furano and it dumped one morning and we had two runs in untracked knee deep pow before the mountain tracked out" or good as in "We skied knee to waist deep untracked pow every day of our trip". Because those standards are very different, and when you're reading the recommendations of strangers on reddit you need to take things with a grain of salt. If there are lots of people at a ski area, the skiing probably isn't good in the high standards way.
Going back to that 2023 winter working for a big company, we did ski two genuinely good runs that season. Both involved skinning away from the ski area, both left me legitimately stoked, and on both occasions the group came off the mountain fizzing like they'd just had a religious experience. A great ski line can bring a level of joy that feels transcendent, that stays with you for years.
That's why I'm in this game. And that's what we're trying to do at the Powder Project. That's why we don't do resort guiding and won't take you to Asahidake. It's why we break trail all day instead, and spend our days off wandering around in new areas looking for new lines.
We think that trade is worth it. Hopefully you do too.