On Skiing in Japan

As far as I know this says foreigners only.

自己責任(jikosekinin)- One's own responsibility, at your own risk

My Japanese Tutor, who happened to live in the US for several years, taught me the above word as I was trying to explain that in the US many ski resorts don't have any boundaries, areas off the main trails are simply identified as ski at your own risk.

Her response was, "this is a very western way of thinking"

Indeed.

Skiing and snowboarding is quite popular in Japan. According to some online sources Japan has more ski resorts then in the United States, although I would guess in the US particularly in the west the average ski resort is much larger.

I haven't been able to find any statistics on the number of people who go skiing each year in Japan or the US, but my intuition tells me that it's quite possible that more people go skiing every year in Japan than in the entire US. 

Japan has about one half the population of the US, but it is packed onto a densely populated mountainous island about the size of California. Dry, cold, Siberian air sucks up water from the sea before it slams into the mountains of Japan's northern island Hokkaido 北海道 and Honshu's western prefectures, ensuring these mountains are blanketed with some of the most consistent heavy snowfall found in the world. 

Japan's small size and fast, efficient transportation infrastructure means virtually the entire population is located within about two hours of hundreds of ski resorts. By contrast most of the major population centers in the US are not located within day trip distance to anything larger then a medium size hill. Chicago and the other major cities of the mid west, Texas, the south, DC. Even New York City requires many hours of driving/sitting in traffic to reach a ski resort.

The greater Tokyo area is home to 35 million people, about one quarter of the population of Japan. By bus or by train residents inclined to go skiing have hundreds of options well within range of a day or weekend trip. Cheap package deals including transportation, lift tickets and rentals can be found and further discounts for large groups negotiated. 

Anecdotally, I can report that on the weekends the major transport hubs of Shinjuku and Ikebukuro are bustling staging areas for alpine excursions. Thousands of Tokyoites lugging around gear finding their way to one of the many buses cued up along the street among the tall towers of the skyscraper district. 

Girls wearing high heals and skirts (yes in January) can be seen toting snowboard bags while simultaneously texting on their phones. 

After trying out six different mountains, I'm prepared to make a couple generalizations about ski resorts in Japan

First, Japanese ski resorts seem to take more responsibility for making sure skiers aren't placed in any danger relative to their western counterparts. 

In the 1980s technological developments allowed experienced skiers to navigate much more difficult terrain safely. To capitalize on these developments resorts introduced and heavily marketed the double black diamond trail rating. As I mentioned above, mountains like Jackson Hole in WY, opened up all of their terrain. 

In contrast here I've run into perfectly covered trails that were closed for no discernable reason (they hadn't been groomed yet perhaps?)

I took this picture of a closed trail on Iwatake in Hakuba. Large wide natural half-pipe with good snow cover. There were maybe a couple of lines down when we decided to check it out after lunch - I would bet from the Australian crew I met out of bounds that morning. 

We ducked under the line right infront of the lift operator are were treated to a great run in about foot deep powder. We proceeded to do about 5 more laps, eventually other people started joining us ducking under the line. 

The bigger issue is that despite huge mountains and great snow the trail designers of every mountain I've been to with the exception of Happo-one, seem to have gone out of their way to make them as bland and predictable as possible. Even the expert trails are just a bit steeper with bumps. You rarely see any kind of narrow chutes, drop offs, or glades. I haven't seen any double blacks. 

The lack of glades runs seems especially bizarre because virtually all of the trees are perfectly spaced without them having to do anything! Japan being the densely populated resource strapped island that it is, I think logged many of the forests covering the mountains maybe a couple hundred years ago so the resulting young forest isn't nearly as dense and perfect for skiing. In some cases the resort could just draw a line on a map and they would have a glade run.

Here are some thin alpine trees from Ryuo

This leads me to my grand theory about Japanese ski resorts. 

The primary consideration of most Japanese ski resorts is the visual aesthetic experience of skiing, not the variety of technically interesting terrain. 

The feasibility of putting in a beginner trail at high altitude with good exposure to scenes of stunning alpine beauty seems to be the primary characteristic determining the location of ski resorts in Japan.

I get the feeling that a bunch of Japanese mountaineers went to Europe back in the day and skied along those wide glaciers perched high in the Alps, and thought "Ah this is skiing we must recreate this in Japan."

The reason I think this aesthetic goal is the primary goal and not simply a byproduct is that often times it conflicts with making the mountain 

I found the most clear example of this at Ryuo, which features a lower and upper beginner areas. The upper area can be reached via tram. There is no expert terrain at the upper area. However the only way down from the upper area are two expert trails - one of which was open in the morning the other in the afternoon, go figure.

The mountain seems deliberately designed so that inexperienced skiers can get to ski at higher altitudes with better views, regardless of whether or not they could actually get down (most beginners seemed to be taking the tram down). 

Although it has to be said, the view was good.

Here Tsugaike 

Iwatake

Mountains with 1000-1500m vertical drops will have only two wide avenue trails to get down.

For skiers with no reservations about ducking under rope lines and shimmying around fences however this is almost the perfect situation. The best and most varied terrain of every mountain is always virtually untouched. You can find fresh tracks at any time of day.

Unlike say skiing in New England, which heading off piste can quickly turn into a bushwhacking adventure the trees in Japan are better spaced then many glade runs in North America. Personally I  prefer to explore the terrain on my own in just this fashion.