Once again, the snow has started to fly here in Crested Butte and I am anxiously awaiting ski season. Fall is spent gearing up or winter in my world. This consists of organizing my Ultimate Groove events all over the world. Stay tuned to www.ultimategrooves.com for a full schedule of events. In 2010 we will be hosting events at Crystal Mountain, WA and HooDoo, Oregon, (outside Bend), as well as Sugar Bowl in Tahoe, CA and back east at Sunapee, NH and Jay Peak , VT.

4:30am came fast, we awoke to 4 inches of ice on our windows and snowdrifts more than 2 feet high at the doors. Our fearless Barden hosts had been awake since 3am shoveling and digging out the vehicles to give us a ride down the pass to our waiting bus. We rallied as a group, got our bags loaded into a mini little pick-up truck the size of a golf cart which took several ropes to keep the bags on. We piled into a tiny little van, all of us on top of each other crammed in and following our bags down the invisible pass.

Our last day on skis of course started with an Onsen and a western breakfast which was a delight. The face shots were again not missed, we couldn’t avoid them if we tried. I cannot believe the amount of snow that falls on the North Island of Japan, it is mindboggeling. We did not have a day without constant face shots! The trees we skied through made each run even more amazing, see photos!

Oh, to soak every morning, what a way to start the day, I love the Onsens. The Japanese have this dialed!

Today was our first day in the backcountry and we were again greeted by great powder, high winds up high and cold temperatures. We continued the early morning Onsen tradition here at Barden. We started our day with some beacon training, to make sure the group members each had a good knowledge of the way their own beacon worked. Once everyone was up to speed and comfortable, we headed up on a bus to get some more altitude fast and try for some views of the whole Tokicha-dake range.

Today we traveled to the interior to the national forest in the Furano region of Hokkaido to get settled at our new home, the Barden, for the next three days of backcountry skiing. We piled in the bus and everyone got some well deserved rest, listened to music and ate. It was a long bus journey, about 7 hours with our driver getting lost more than once!

Today we started out at Moiwa, another Niseko resort close to our hotel, (the Kanronomori), and the sun was shining and we could see the volcano, Mt. Yotei, clear as day and all of Niseko, which was a nice change after being in the blizzard for days now. We paid for one ride up Moiwa and headed out of the gates there to ski in the backcountry to an Onsen. It was everything we hoped it would be, skining up a scenic ridge with incredible views, great powder turns in the sunshine and then relaxing afternoon soaking in the hot springs. The powder was a bit wind buffed and creamy.

It’s hard to add any photos of this day because there was absolutely NO visibility and it dumped snow harder than any us of have ever experienced. It was snowing, by our calculations 4” per hour, only in Japan. There were a lot of “Arregatos” shouted from beneath the powder on this day. I can’t remember any turns that were not faceshots, perhaps the deepest snow I have ever skied. Grand Hirafu was not operating fully today, only the lower lifts were open as there was no visibility. All the out of bounds stuff remained closed.

The powder has not disappointed, as you can see from today’s photos, (Saturday). We woke up to sunshine, views of Mount Yotei and about 12 inches of the lightest freshest powder you could imagine. The temperatures dropped considerably late yesterday but the frozen toes and noses paid off today after our first turns. Check out Tara Gorman and MacKenzie Mailly getting really deep, pictures of the famed volcano, Mt. Yotei and the wind affect on the peak of Mt. Annupuri.

The rest of our clients arrived and we all got out to ski together and tour the resorts here in Niseko. There are 4 resorts that share the same mountain, sounds crazy but this mountain is very big. We purchased all mountain tickets so we were free to roam anywhere we wanted.