Snow …. Snow …. Snow

 While the first few days had a bit of a scrambly feel to them, due to the wind keeping the upper lifts closed, the last few have been seemingly quite relaxed. The wind dropped and the upper lifts are operating which means we can move from resort to resort on the hill. One of the side benefits is the busses are less busy so are easier to use.

It continues to snow, there is always a layer of new powder every day. Sometimes only a few inches but sometimes a foot or more. With the upper lifts going it is easy to reach a whole new playing field! Trees and steep pitches. There is another benefit, there are fewer lower level skiers/boarders up high.

 

The other bonus to the lighter wind is we can actually see what is around us. It’s a little disturbing to learn that the world is bigger than you imagined. It’s kind of funny to see buildings right nearby or beside the road that you didn’t know were there because of the conditions. The weather is breaking and we can see for miles from the top now.

We are also found a variety of lift styles here. Each resort has its own style. Niseko Village appears to be the oldest. The chairs are doubles with the old slat backs and hard seats. Reminiscent of of 1980s Sunshine lifts. Hirafu has some newer style lifts and two gondolas, very much like the old Sunshine Gondola. There are hooded chairs here, all automatic and quite comfortable. Annipuri seems a little newer although they do have some older style lifts, slat back hard seats. Their gondola is fairly new though. Hanazono seems to be the newest resort. It has hooded chairs and a new gondola. It tends to be less busy than some of the other resorts.

The really freaky thing is the upper lifts. There are five, one each per resort and an extra at Hirafu. Some of these lifts seem absolutely archaic. Two of then are no more than a single flat seat, no restraint or safety devices, we were told it was ‘like riding on a pizza box’, and it very much was. One of them was a double pizza box!