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. The landscape is interesting, it looks like Vermont as you look out from the resort but the mountain has quite a bit more vertical gain than anything in Vermont, but everything around it is much smaller except Mount Tokei which looks exactly like Mount Fuji coming out of nowhere, (stay tuned for pictures of that when it clears enough to see the peak). The North island of Japan has certainly lived up to its reputation, it continues to snow. We have not had huge accumulation yet but it is rumored to be moving in throughout the weekend.

The resort has more chairlifts than I have ever seen, including several "hooded quads" and many single chairlifts which look like museum pieces. Lift ticket prices are quite a bit more reasonable than in the states and when you see the place, it makes sense. They don't spend extra money to doll everything up with super fancy buildings and overdone fencing. It is simpler, corrugated tin lift houses, (many rusting), but what they do offer is pretty fantastic; the food at all the mountain lodges is better than you get in your favorite sushi restaurant in the states. We’ve had curry dishes, ramen noodles, sushi and salads for lunch which makes it tough to ski after lunch! The out of bounds gates are great and offer some amazing powder skiing and mostly untracked terrain, which you wouldn't find in the US so late in a storm cycle. We have spent the majority of time skiing out of bounds and the few other folks out there don’t seem to avalanche savvy. We were in the minority skiing with beacons, shovels and probes. The snow is deep and although not super steep in most spots, avalanche danger is still a very real threat. From what we hear, the patrol doesn’t even open the gates if there is high danger.
The Onsen experience continues to amaze us as well, remember these are mineral hot springs in the form of Japanese baths. We have been able to truly nurture ourselves with powder skiing, incredible food and healing hot mineral springs every day, (we onsen at least twice a day). We plan to split our groups and dive into some work on technique tomorrow so our group is more prepared for our backcountry experience coming up early next week.

Time to don the kimono and head to another 7 course Japanese meal.

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