Buses to Kiroro
The trip from Furano to Kiroro involved two buses. The first took us to Chitose Airport where we had a couple of hours before taking the Hokkaido Resort bus directly to Kiroro. The trip down the coast was spectacular. The road is very close to the sea, the mountains rising steeply on the other side. The whole area was covered in snow.
I cannot imagine that there are too many heavily inhabited places in the world where there is permanent winter snow at sea level.
Hotel in Kiroro
We checked into the hotel late in the afternoon. I was immediately impressed. My room had two beds and a small table and occasional chair. Compared to the Furano hotel to room was big.
We met up with the fourth member of a party, an old school mate of my Balmain host.
In addition to our hotel, there is another much larger hotel operated by the same company, about a half a kilometer down the hill. A regular shuttle bus runs between the two hotels. The larger hotel has five or six restaurants. We ended up eating there all but one night over our stay.
One of the restaurants, my favourite, involved barbequing your meal on a grill in the middle of the table. There are many options for food. The general consensus was that the meet options were preferable to fish.
In one of the other restaurants I had tempura. The trick is to have the tempura items, prawns and vegetables, served separately from the rice. This ensures they are crisp, rather than soggy.
I had a couple of drinks of sake – hot and cold. Sake is okay, but I prefer the local beers. Draft Sapporo is a very good larger. It was also possible to buy a local craft beer in hotel shop. The ales was the best of the options.
Hiring Gear
I had to hire another lot of gear. Even when I skied in Australia, I had hired both skis and boots each year. I formed view that given that I was only skiing for one week at a time, this was preferable to buying the stuff. It seemed that the skis in particular, improved significantly each year. If you bought some, they would be relatively inferior within a couple of years.
At this resort the choice of clothing was limited to ‘Swedish’ colours – yellow jacket and blue pants or vice versa. I decided in the former. At least made me easier to see on the slopes.
The Snow
The first day’s skiing was spoilt a bit by the wind. It was blowing a gale. It was so strong that it prevented the gondola, which runs to the top of the slopes, from operating.
Skiing in Powder and Recalling a Day in Thredbo (Australia)
The second day was first day that I had encountered significant powder snow. It is quite an experience for the novice ‘powder skier’, particularity someone who has only skied in Australia.
My only recollection of seeing similar snow in Australia was at Thedbo in the early 1980’s. It was a particularly cold day and it was snowing heavily. I was skiing with my ‘motorcycling mate’ and we decided to head down the run called ‘High Noon’. This was in the days when before it had been widened, and it was very narrow and not groomed.
I recall that we got about half way down the slope before we started falling. It took us ages to get to the bottom, with numerous falls.
We decided give ‘High Noon’ away and only ski on Merritt’s. When we returned to on the lift to the Village we could see the ‘High Noon’ run. There were on two tracks on the slope – clearly ours.
I recall us discussing the fact that Australians skiers often talk about skiing in non-groomed powder snow. It appeared that this was one day that those skiers were not around.
Good powder snow rarely falls in Australia. If it does, it rarely lasts beyond eleven o’clock at the latest.
Old Blokes Good at Powder
Back to Kiroro. My skiing mates have had a lot of experience in powder snow in Japan. They particularly like skiing through the trees where no one else has been.
I found this particularly disconcerting on two fronts. One was you can’t see your skis and I was not confident of being able to turn quickly enough to slow down and/or miss the trees. My Balmain host correct observed that the snow is so light that it doesn’t really impact your ability to turn. This is true, however it still takes a lot of getting used to.
Sunny Day and GoPro Video
The next day was the best as far as the weather was concerned. I was final able to see the mountain where the resort is located. It was quite spectacular. You can also the sea in the distance.
My Balmain host and I have GoPro video camera. We used both to film some skiing. I have posted a small clip on Flickr.
Visits to Otaru
On our penultimate day we decide to go into Otaru which is on the coast about 50 drive from the resort. It has a canal close the sea where the ‘Otaru Light Festival’ was due to start the next day.
We walk around to centre of the town stopping into a large number of shops. My Balmain host’s school mate is not keen on shops. He was not Robinson Crusoe that afternoon.
My Balmain host and I ventured back into Otaru the next night for an hour to see the ‘Light Festival’. It was okay. Check out the Flickr photos.
Flickr Link
Garmin Links
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