Make Friends On A Powder Day

We enjoy being on the mountain and touring. We like skiing/riding pow and if there’s no pow we like the glide down. We love food, so we will cook for you on the mountain. Well, this tour is unlikely to suck then.

It had been sunny for a few days prior to a light refresh of the snow pack, and start of March had shown us a glimpse of spring. We started the 2 days tour on the lower more protected northern slopes of Furanodake. It was one of those perfect spring like day with a very reasonable sprinkle of soft snow on a firm base – hero condition basically with sunshine and solitude.

 

 

Day two was spent on Asahidake, and we were able to see the fumeroles under blue sky with perfect visibility. The main ski faces were pretty skied out over the last few days with no significant new snow. We ventured out to my favourite area to find an untouched drainage. Whilst it was a little sun affected, the corn like snow skied very well, my 1^st time skiing corn snow in early March, in Japow!

 

 

Now the food part of this tour deserved some mention. The guys brought everything from Korea, and we sampled a menu of smoked duck, BBQ pork, spicy intestines, potato pancakes and kimchi. On the final day Sammy and I attempted to make Irish coffee on the hill but failed to get squirty cream and sugar, but everything tastes great on the mountain, so it didn’t matter.

 

Every tour has its own flavour, but this trip stood out on its own. And it is true the way to a guide’s heart is through his sophisticated palate.