COULD THIS BE THE PLACE? A short drive away are a couple of trams that bring tourists to a broad plateau and plentiful mellow terrain. But below the trams, in the river valley, the mountains steepen. Pillows and steep ridgelines are in plain sight. Problem is, they’re out of bounds. And by now, we’ve grown weary of the shutdown policies in Yuzawa. We board the tram and look down hesitantly, hoping the lift operator won’t catch us eyeing off-limits lines. Yes, it looks good. Yes, a natural kicker is just to the left. Yes, it leads to a snow-covered road where we can set a bootpack to a bridge and back to the parking lot. After unloading and taking a quick chairlift lap on the plateau, Travis casually walks behind a ramen house, pretending to take a leak. There’s no megaphone, or overzealous warning sign, or apologetic pa-trollers sent to call us off the fun stuff. We follow quietly one by one, moving swiftly to a steep pitch through the trees. It’s deep in there, untouched. We lap it a few times before heading to the other side of the tram to suss out more terrain. More pillows, it turns out, and a small, fluted face. With each lap, I expect patrol to be waiting for us, but it doesn’t happen. Could this be the place? EVERY LAST FLAKE The blue skies were fleeting. The next day, as we wake up, Shin looks out the window and notes that “it’s snowing uphill.” Indeed, it is— flakes are floating upward next to the building. It has already snowed seven feet in seven days, and it’s snowing even harder now, harder than I’ve ever seen it snow. We promptly drive back to the tram and dive into a total refresh. Every run gets deeper; our tracks are barely visible after an hour’s accumulation. There’s too much snow to shoot, too much snow to do anything but ride, line after line, blinded by the white. After dinner, Shin, Hana, Travis, Gabe and I head for a resort in town, where we find a six-seater bubble lift still spinning. Travis meets a crew of locals and soon we’re 12 deep, flying fast and loose through the night, ducking ropes, slashing powder, shadows playing off one another, fully indulged. It has snowed three feet in a day, and it feels like our duty to savor every flake until last chair. In the morning, we’ll go back to that tram, pat down a few pillows, put in work for the movie. But on this long day bleeding into night, we’ve found a glimpse of why so many westerners return to Japan year after year. There’s so much beyond the Hakuba/Niseko rotation, so many new locales to be explored. Dozens of other places like Yuzawa are out there, waiting to be ridden till the snow stops falling. I’d bet a lot of them are only a mountain pass away. YUZAWA 067
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 17.1: Page 67
