I get a lot of questions about the ideal ski width for Hokkaido, so I thought I’d put my thoughts down here in a definitive blog post.
Before we get into it, here’s some context so you can decide how to interpret my advice:
I like wide skis. In general I like skis that are stable and damp, and I find fat skis usually provide that. I don’t ski groomers at all, so I don’t care about carving performance or speed from edge to edge. I do ski a bit of ice in NZ, sometimes in quite consequential situations, but I find a well built fat ski will get me through that stuff OK.
Everyone is different. If you’re lighter and fitter you might get away with a narrower ski. If you’re not used to driving bigger skis then stepping from an 80-something waisted all mountain ski to a 120-something powder ski might be quite weird. Do what makes sense for you.
I’m not telling anyone that what they’re doing is wrong. I skied a bit with some pretty strong ski instructors in my early seasons in NZ. They skied pow on 67mm waisted skis and made it look good. That wouldn’t work for me, and it probably wouldn’t work for a lot of skiers, but if it works for you, great! This is a post for people who don’t really know what they want or what to expect. If you know what works for you then go do that.
This run was so good Iona teared up at the bottom. Do you want to miss that because you’re floundering?
OK. That said. How wide should my skis be for Hokkaido powder skiing?
First, let’s set some expectations about the kind of skiing you’ll be doing. For us, our baseline expectation is to ski boot deep pow with no crust at the bottom. I usually ski somewhere between zero and three days a season that are worse than that. An average day for us is probably shin deep to knee deep. A better than average but not exceptional day is mid-thigh deep standing still. A top 10% day is waist deep standing still. Once you start moving in those conditions, you can expect to have snow in your face the whole time. And it gets deeper than that.
That’s probably not something you should expect from a resort based trip. We’re in the backcountry, there’s no skier compaction, and we know how to get the most out of the weather. We ski a lot of good snow.
So your 105-ish waisted skis will be fine for boot deep, shin deep, and maybe even knee deep days if you’re a decent skier. And if you’re coming on a 5 day road trip and you’re a touch unlucky that might be all you ski with us.
But if you’re on a longer trip, or you have average or better conditions, you can expect at least one day that’s mid-thigh to waist deep. Some people can manage that on narrower skis, but for most people something bigger that 110mm underfoot is going to make the day easier and much more fun.
I think about it like this: You’re coming to Japan to ski deep powder. It’s not guaranteed but there’s a decent, maybe even 50-50 chance you’ll find thigh deep conditions or deeper. If those conditions happen, do you want to have a fun time or a hard time? If I was going all that way I’d want the best possible chance of making that a great experience.
I think Tom is on Volkl Revolts here, so something like 117mm underfoot. This is the shallowest of 4 runs we did that day. If you’re on 106mm waisted skis here you’re going to choke.
Based on that, my recommendations are:
The vast majority of skiers will struggle on skis less than 100mm underfoot. There are people out there who make it work, you’ll know if you’re one of them. If not, go wider.
100-110 mm waisted skis work for anything up to an average day as long as you have some experience skiing them in powder. For strong skiers, they’ll get away with those on deep days, but even they might struggle on exceptional, crazy-deep days.
110-120mm waisted skis will work for most days we ski for most skiers we ski with. For a typical skier, even a ski this big will feel small if it gets really deep. A strong skier will be fine with these in any conditions.
120+mm skis are really fun. If you just want a pair of powder skis for Japan get something bigger than 120mm. They’ll work fine on mediocre to average days. On above-average days they’ll be awesome. On a truly deep day they’ll be life changing.
For reference, I’ve skied two ski models in Hokkaido: My old setup was an old model 122mm underfoot, 188cm Kingswood SMB. They were awesome (they still are! I still ski them for heliskiing in NZ). I loved them, but they’re super heavy. My current setup are a more recent model of the same ski, 117 underfoot, 181cm long, full carbon. They are sick and you should buy some. I don’t even get paid to say that.
There are times I have wished both sets of skis were bigger. Years ago at Asahidake on my 122mm skis I was shuffling and poling out of an exit when I stopped moving forwards in the deep snow and started sinking down. I ended up eyes deep in snow with my skis on. I had to take them off, throw them in front of me, and swim out of the hole. When Hokkaido decides to get seriously deep conditions can be kind of scary and you’ll want the biggest skis you can find.
In an ideal world where I could afford any skis I wanted I’d get another pair of wider (125-130mm), slightly softer and even flexing Kingswoods for Japan and leave them there over the summer.