Words: Austen Sweetin. Photos: Tsutomu Endo 2021-01-25 17:53:47
Endless winter. Rishiri sunset party lap with Jesse Grandkoski, Austen Sweetin, Taylor Carlton and Griffin Siebert. “It’s gonna be insane and we’re going to the top,” Taylor Carlton said through a haze of sake. Maybe the abundant rice wine had altered his memory. Maybe he was still stuck in a feedback loop of anticipation and celebration. We’d been sitting in a little fishing village on Rishiri waiting out the weather for three days, as the Sea of Japan raged with subarctic winds, our ferry out of there delayed for who knows how long. It was early March. The world was about to go into pandemic mode. But we’d already been to the top. And it had been insane. Rishiri is a volcanic island off the northwest tip of Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido, just 20 miles south of Russia. Essentially a floating volcano, its name comes from the Ainu language and means “high island.” The extinct cone of Mount Rishiri dominates the landscape, rising to 5,646 feet straight from the sea. The island’s 5,102 residents see few visitors, especially during winter months, when most of the eponymous village shuts down due to consistently harsh weather. Heavy winds scour the island from all sides, rolling in from the Sea of Ohkotsk and the North Pacific. High pressure during winter is rare. To get to Rishiri, one must either board a ferry from Wakkanai on northern Hokkaido or catch a daily flight from Sapporo that can be hit or miss. To increase our odds, we’d booked both options. I was traveling with Taylor, Griffin Siebert, Jason Robinson, Jesse Grandkoski, filmer Sean Lucey and photographer Tsutomu Endo. And while we didn’t foresee the coming COVID lockdown, we did manage to depart just ahead of it by plane on Feb. 29. With crystal-clear skies and 360-degree views, Rishiri appeared in the distance—spine-filled ridges guarding deep gullies, weaving from the summit to the sea. A powder-coated volcano filling the horizon. Landing on a particularly cold and sunny day, the first thing I noticed was that we must have been the youngest people there. We were surrounded by folks in their 80s. Strange. As we made our way to the hotel where we would spend the next 10 days, all seemed quiet. Most of the buildings were boarded up for the winter. The occasional elderly person, bundled in a puffy down suit, shuffled by with their dog en route to the hardware store or Seicomart, two of the only stores that seemed open. Our hotel, small and quaint with a bathtub-sized onsen that required a rotation to make sure everyone got their soak, was tucked up on the hillside at the edge of town and the base of the mountain—a refuge to eat strange, delightful meals, sleep, onsen and begin our tours for the next seven days. Local guides Pow and Korichi met us there. Korichi is a humble badass with a calm demeanor and a wealth of knowledge. He has summited the hardest routes of Denali multiple times and had to communicate mostly via thumbs up or thumbs down due to the language barrier. On the skintrack, though, his approach did the talking. I have never witnessed someone with such a consistently fast and smooth pace. Pow was our petite bundle of positive energy and tail guide. She would often translate when planning with Korichi and give a smile and nod when we wanted to take another run. Immediately, they began to go over some of the potential routes up the volcano. With a high-pressure system upon us, it would be an early start. Then, a cultural lesson: Long before people even thought about heading to the island to chase powder, Rishiri was known for its Pacific herring fishery, but now the stock is mostly depleted. Recently, Rishirians cultivate kelp and produce dried kombu, a staple of the Japanese diet for more than 1,500 years. The island is strewn with clotheslines used for hanging seaweed during summer months. Dinner arrived—fresh fish, seaweed and a wide assortment of Japanese delicacies. Over the meal, Pow informed us that the island’s harsh climate and lack of economic opportunity has sent most of the younger folks and families packing for Hokkaido, leaving the elders on the island to continue the fishing and farming. Recently, however, Rishiri has become an upstart tourist destination during the spring and summer months when the weather moderates and becomes ideal for hiking the pristine volcano and enjoying the Sea of Japan. And the locals have begun to embrace modern culture. A group of elderly fishermen with an average age of 85 recently started a hip-hop group called the Rishirie Boys in hopes of inspiring younger generations to stay and live the Rishiri lifestyle. But a recent trickle of winter visitors has been arriving, chasing the chance to ride summit to sea. That, of course, is what brought us here. A trip like this doesn’t come around very often. When it does, you are usually taking a pretty big risk and hoping for a bigger reward. So when Grandkoski asked if I wanted to do a trip to an island that’s not so easy to get to with a climate that seemed similar to Everest, I agreed instantly. Shortly after assembling our down-for-anything crew, out group chat started going off regarding what gear we needed to summit this volcano. Ice axe? Double Ice axe? Triple ice axe? Splitboard crampons? What are those? I think I’ve seen them before but I’m not really sure how to use them… For months, weeks, then days leading up to the trip, the banter escalated. By the time we were being towed behind a snowmobile to the base of the mountain where we would start our skintrack, we were all well prepared. Due to weather, summiting Rishiri during winter isn’t easy. Before arrival we’d done a warm-up tour to the summit of Niseko’s 6,161-foot Mt. Yotei with Rip Zinger, where we scored a bluebird day and untouched pow. When we got to the bottom, Rip looked at us and said we had just scored the season’s best Yotei and deemed us the “Sunshine Boys.” Even with blue skies overhead, high wind kept us from a summit bid on our first day on Rishiri. I couldn’t help but wonder when the Sunshine Boys would run out of rays. “What do you mean we’re not going to the top? This is absolutely ridiculous; it’s right there!” It was nearing the end of our trip and I was getting frustrated by a questionable forecast. “We drop here,” Korichi said. The summit was so close we could taste it. We thought we had more than enough time. Korichi didn’t. He’d said “top,” and we’d misunderstood that as “summit”. He’d just meant the top of a gully. So, a bit disgruntled, we partied down a few thousand feet of thigh-burning pow and, I must say, the run was a sick one. There was even a natural arch to jump through. But behind that arch, Rishiri was shining in all its glory. It now seemed much farther away. “Be curious, not judgmental” is a phrase I try to remember when I am disagreeing with someone. At the time, we didn’t know the summit was still hours away from where we’d dropped in. We didn’t know it was too late in the day to make it up and back down safely before nightfall. And we definitely did not know a window was coming and with it a potential summit day. Turns out Korichi and Pow know better than us, and they had a plan. The next morning, the stars were out and a cracker blue day beckoned. A storm would follow for the foreseeable future. If we were going to the top, today was our day. Out the door by 4 a.m., we left ahead of the storm. Climbing steadily, the sun started to poke above the ridge in front of us as the clock struck 8:30. By 9:30 we reached the top of the gully we had ridden the day prior, our high point thus far. There, we took a short rest to hydrate and fuel up for the final hour-and-a-half push to the peak. Griffin set the pace, with Jerry Garcia whispering from one of his pockets. Jason hand-rolled tobacco and we kept moving. We stayed mostly quiet, not wanting to jinx it. Soon enough, we were tunneling up through the rime of the final approach, crampons on and ice axes in hand. Those last few steps to the summit were better than the summit itself—that feeling of anticipation when you’re about to accomplish something you’ve waited long and worked hard to achieve. Doing it with a group of friends you care so much for just adds to that feeling of pure happiness, weightlessness. Assembled atop Rishiri, we lingered a moment to take in 360-degree views of Hokkaido, of Russia, and down to the water’s edge. How petite we are in a world so vast. “Crack, swoosh, cheers”—Jesse popped a tiny Asahi, breaking through the hollers of stoke. Below lay 5,646 feet of powder. There was no way we were riding it one by one—we’d be party-boarding from the summit to the sea. It’s very rare to be able to ride a big line in a group. But with the snowpack locked up and friendly and mellow terrain below, these gullies were meant to be ridden together. It was one of the greatest runs of my life—complete freedom and powder, with six of my best friends on a volcanic island in the Sea of Japan. Reaching the shore, spirits high and eyes heavy, we could see the storm brewing on the horizon. What we couldn’t see was the uncertainty we were about to endure: three days of 60 mph winds, a sketchy crossing via ferryboat, a scramble home as the world was shutting down. There was nothing we could do about it at the moment anyway. So, to give thanks, we stripped down and jumped into the cold, cleansing saltwater, lingering in the here and now.
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