By late February the whole vibe of the resort changed. There were far less tourists and there with that being far less tracks in the backcountry. We had gone from only a few people out there to relatively no one. So with Leigh’s knowledge of the resort and my figuring it out we did hot laps day after day, bell to bell with our only rest and food times being the 15 minute Gondola back to the top.

Lap after glorious lap of untracked snow and all because we were a month after the most popular time in Japan. Two weeks early you would have 15 minutes to get the lines untracked but here we were riding them after noon.

We had found ourselves in a ghost town and made the most our of it riding in a blurried frenzy. We had our pick of the lines day after day and it was then that I fell in love with the concept of Japan. If it was America all of the snow would have been tracked out but with the perfect mixture of large quantities of snow and Japanese mindset it left these zones all to us day after day.

By my last night in late February I had spent 23 days in Japan and rode pretty much all of them using my splitboard only twice to find fresh snow. By this time I was addicted to the routine and knew that I would have to come back again.

So for my final night in Japan we built an Igloo in Leigh’s backyard and toasted to an amazing trip for all of us. I had the good fortune to meet and ride with numerous people around the world as well as take in a small piece of Japanese culture. By the time I was taking the plane home I was already making plans to come back the following year as Japan is the perfect storm of powder riding, onsen than sushi, then repeat the next day!!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Japan trip!! It was a blast!!!