Roadside Premier

Looking for our next adventure!

We drove around one day with a local guide looking for roadside features we could hike to and jump off of! Super fun day! We found some avalanche barriers and a small bank with bamboo growing out of it.

Hucking off a bank over some bamboo!

Avalanche barriers!

The guide that took us out had been with a camera crew and professional skiers a few days before doing the same thing we were doing! Made us feel like pros!

A little photoshop trick.

Annupuri

Here we are hiking up a mountain called Chis-annupuri. In the indigenous language, annupuri, means mountain and most places have two names, one Japanese and one indigenous. This can get very, very confusing.

This was about a 2 hr hike and an amazing ride down. The weather changes even quicker here than in Montana, and we had about 10 minutes of blue sky and then a small system would move in and snow a few centimeters in a 30 minutes or less!

This is on the ski hill on one of our first days.

I think I fell after this! There was just so much snow, it was an insane work out but since the powder was so light it could have been much worse! Good thing there were natural hot springs to soak in every night.

Mt. Yotei, which is the Japanese name. I forget the other name for it, but it is pretty much a slightly smaller version of Mt. Fuji! Apparently you can hike to the peak in 6 hrs, ski the crater in the middle, hike out and ski down in a day!

Last day on the hill and it was the clearest it had been all week! This was our first glimpse at the peak of Mt. Yotei. Despite how clear and mild the weather looks, apparently the winds on Mt. Yotei peak on a day like this are still +80 mph!

Hirafu

Down town Hirafu is treacherous. Build on a slope angling up to Niseko United ski hill, 1/3 of reported injuries are thanks to these streets. Thirty minutes into our first day both me and Brandon had multiple close calls, but I'm proud to say we didn't join the statistics. Somehow my trusty Vanns shoes and his Uggs got us through unscathed.

I feel like this picture could only be taken in Scandinavia or Japan, look at the symmetry!

How many Japanese are shoveling snow? Answer at bottom of page.

There were countless Après-ski houses in town...

The ski hill is open 8:20 am to 8pm... this is the only street light in Hirafu.

Answer: 6

Jam Cafe was a happening place! Super cozy with a surfer/skier feel. They are hardcore in Japan and even though they can't ski year round they can surf all year! This is Sho, an amazing surfer who is taking a cold surfing season off in Japan and heading south after this winter.

Best meal in Hirafu, fried noodles with flakes of smoked fish. It came sizzling on this iron plate and the fish was waving back and forth from the heat!

Our first of many ramen meals... so satisfying after a cold day skiing!

I went for the pork chop ramen, a favorite anywhere :)

Jam Hostel and Cafe!

Our amazing dinner of sheep sizzled on a Hokkaido-style bbq!

Itsumi, our amazing hostel mother!

The quaint dinning room...

Down at the Jam Cafe, the bar Itsumi's son owns and cooks for.

Playing darts, I have the Ted-Linford-concentration going on!

Hong Kong Sunday

We took a stroll around Hong Kong when we got back a few weeks back. The sun light was so pretty streaming between the buildings and filtering through the pollution, ha, you got to take what you can get around here.

Christmas Hockey!