Many of you probably know Asahidake as a back country destination. The highest mountain on the island of Hokkaido, it features a single cable car from 1150 m to 1600 m. To give you some idea of the snow quality at that height, take the best snow from the top bowls of Niseko and Furano and put that at the lift base. Sure enough they had an amazing story of their own to match our Typhoon report - 10 cm of ACCUMULATION at the base on the morning of the 11th.

Christmas in October?

This picture is from Asahidake Onsen, at the BASE. Of the ski runs. In early October. You can see the news with video feed through the link below.

Doshin News - 10 cm Accumulation at Asahidake Onsen, Oct 11

What’s the best way to get autumn photos and exercise at the same time? Hiking of course. There is a super easy and rewarding hike right outside our front door - the Kitanomine Ski Hill. In anticipation of the November snows, the main runs are cleared and cut, making it a very easy 20 minute walk to the top of the quad lift. That boosts us from the 250 m lift base to about 500 m ASL, offering amazing views of the autumn leaves, farmland of the Furano valley, and Tokachidake mountain range. Hope you enjoy the results.

If you’re feeling frisky and have more than a 30 minute lunch break to do your photography, it’s about another 60 minutes hike to the top of the Kitanomine Gondola.

Bitterly cold rain swept through the Furano valley yesterday evening, and this morning rain clouds lifted to reveal snow on Nishi-dake. The snow line is now just over 1000 m, which means that the next flakes to fall are likely to land on the upper ski slopes. I was hoping to get up with the Furano Mountaineering Club and hike the traverse to Nishi-dake’s peak next weekend, but it looks like the climb may be called off due to early winter. You can see last year’s hike here.

The view from our front steps this morning. From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

Clouds are stubbornly sticking to the Tokachi range, Taisetsuzan seems to be getting even more snow! You can also check our weather page for a live webcam of the ski hill, just in case we get a surprise dump at ground level here.

Snowfalls on the moutains are very early this year, hopefully we have a great start to the Furano ski season in store.

As promised, photos of the early snow! Here is the Tokachi mountain range, a popular back country destination including Mt Tokachidake, Mt Asahidake, and Mt Kurodake.

Tokachi Mountain Range - From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

First snows on Mt Ashibetsu - From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

As evening temperatures dip into the low single digits, the mountains are bursting with reds, oranges, and yellows. The elusive “yuki-mushi”, or “snow bugs”, considered to be harbingers of the first snows, have already been sited at ground level.

The nearby highest peaks of Asahidake (Hokkaido’s highest) and Tokachidake (home of the highest drivable point on the island) have received their first dustings of snow weeks ago, but Typhoon #18 has given us something even better. We don’t get many typhoons up here in Hokkaido and I’ve always wondered what would happen if one of those warm, wet masses of air passed through our chilly autumn skies. Yesterday morning we had a brief break in the cloud and I was able to witness the result: snow covering the upper third of nearby Mt. Ashibetsu-dake. Ashibetsu is 1600 some meters, and our ski hill on Nishi-dake is just over 1000 meters, so I would estimate the snow line is only about 200 m above the upper slopes. Not bad for the second week of October!!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a photo and the rest of the typhoon effect has resulted in heavy cloud cover today. Will update you shortly. In the meanwhile, here are some shots of the autumn foliage I got last week. Click the photo for more!

From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

Hello golfers!!

Now that the 80% of the audience reading this blog for ski information have left, here is a little secret. For all of September, the Furano Sorachi River Lavender no Mori Golf Course is running a “Twilight Special”. Start from 2:00 pm and enjoy the 18-hole North course for 2,000 yen, or the 9-hole South for just 1,400 yen. (These are weekday rates.)

This scenic riverfront course has to be the most beautiful I have ever seen at less than $30 USD for a full round, and Furano’s clear autumn skies make for an incredible sunsets. (Just don’t get stuck out after dark without a jacket, as it gets very cold very fast due to our continental climate.) They are just 15 minutes drive from here, so add in Fresh Powder’s multi-night discount rates and you have an attractive little golf getaway right there. For those looking to stretch their legs a little, there is also the Palmer-designed Furano Golf Course (25 minutes away), Orika Resort Golf Course (25 minutes), or Park Hills Shirogane Golf Course (1 hour).

Even the Sapporo Golf Club Wattsu Course (home of the Japan Golf Tour ANA Open, and hosted the 24th Japan Ladies’ Open) is not out of reach, at about 2 hours by expressway. Also makes a great last round on the way back to Sapporo Chitose Airport if you have a late flight.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s almost 2:00 pm…

Hello blog readers, just thought you might want to know that the Furano Shizen Juku Ecological Interpretation Park English website is now fully online. You can see details of their programs here:

http://furano-shizenjuku.yosanet.com/english.html

I had the opportunity to tour the park and be one of the first participants in the “forest restoration” project a few years ago. The goal of the program is to return an old golf course to a natural forested state, paying special attention to the natural growth patterns of trees in this climate. Compared to square grid “reforestation”, the results of this “forest restoration” are astounding, and it is hoped that this technique will result in more advanced ecological restoration techniques, that can even be used to add natural green space in the middle of cities.

Forest Restoration Project

October 17th marked the last day for autumn season operation of the Furano Ropeway.  The fastest ropeway in Japan, this mechanical marvel propels 101 enthusiastic skiers or lazy hikers over 850 m of elevation in under 5 minutes. Cruising speed is a brisk 36 kph.  With ropeways running every 5 or 10 minutes through the ski season, that keeps a lot of people on the mountain.  We’ve found a number of guests at Furano get worn out more quickly than they expected, due to the amount of time actually spent skiing instead of waiting in lines and waiting on slow lifts. We encourage you to start getting in shape now!

In summer and autumn, the ropeway is ideal for lazy hikers (like myself) who would like to abbreviate the bottom 900 m of the hike for Furano Nishi-Dake.  Nishi-dake is the high point of the same mountain as the Furano Ski Hill, and is accessible through a ridge traverse from the top of the Ski Hill’s Furano Zone Panorama Run.

Rushing to catch the first ropeway, I found a fairly good crowd turning out to partake in the spectacular autumn scenery. I even encountered a few expat faces, Hayden and Carlie, who both teach English as native-language instructors at local schools. However, hardcore hikers were already on the way up, considering the bottom 900 m a mere warmup to the ridge traversal ahead.

Using the ropeway, the hike is shortened to about 2 hours total. Once the sun came up, we found the low altitude areas to be T-shirt weather. However, near-freezing temperatures and strong winds at the top quickly reminded us that winter is nearly here. We met up with friendly members of the local mountaineering club, who even put on a pot of coffee for us. Nothing makes it taste better than working for it…

Back at ground level, we took the opportunity to try out the brand new onsen at the Furano New Prince Hotel, “Shisai no Yu”. They spent over a year drilling for the hot water, but it was worth it!