‘Japow’ an unforgettable experience
It’s dark and snowy and, our faces still flush from a powder day, we’re in a bus careening down a snowpacked side road near Aomori, Japan.
Someone has clicked “Highway to Hell” on a playlist and my new friend Eric is calling play-byplay like we’re Olympic lugers. The bus driver? Cool as a Fuji apple as he speeds up – squeezing the bus through narrow openings aside massive snowbanks.
The host of this trip, my friend and Indy Ski Pass (www.indyskipass.com) founder Doug Fish, looks over at me with a gleam in his eye as he holds on tight.
“We’re pioneers, Moira! We’re pioneers.” We’re on an adventure to get all the Japow we can. But not the way you’ve heard of.
Japan – Japow as they call it – ski trips are on trend. Olympic venues, climate change pushes for new powder spots and easier flights have made it a doable bucket list item for skiers.
Mostly, they’re heading to Gifu and Nagano on the main island of Honshu, the northern island of Hokkaido, and Niigata on the Sea of Japan coast. There, you’ll find that amazing powder, plenty of touches of Japanese culture, and just enough Americanization/Australianization to make it all comfortable (read: western beds, apres ski cocktail bars, western food and Japanese food with Western lean).
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an adventure and a near promise of pow.
But we’re going off piste nearly all the way here. As Fish has in America with his unification of independently owned ski resorts (which saw a huge boom in and since the pandemic, much because of the IndySkiPass), he now hopes to do so in Japan – and he’s taking us deep to show us.
Indy Pass has teamed up with Japan Ski Tours (www. japanskitours.com), creating eight and 10 day adventures that will bring you those Japow moments while immersing you in true, rural, sometimes challenging and always amazing Japan culture. This is no smooth-the-edges trip. Rather, it’s as wild and heart-pounding and unique and incredible as could be – on and off snow. And: Even your hard core ski friends probably have not been here.
So far from the beaten path we were that one ski area owner told us in his long memory, the 20 of us are the most American’s they’d ever seen at their resort.
Welcome to the world of wild snow luge bus rides, strange and interesting foods, finding the perfect combo of Google translate and pantomime, super old double chairs with wooden seats kept dry via old, old broom, sleeping on
mats, communal nude bathing for all and yes, Sake. Always the Sake.
Welcome to the world of Indy Japow, the next frontier in powder skiing. Hold on for the ride.
We meet our guides at the end of our arrival ride on Japan’s incredible Bullet Train – an adventure in itself that zooms us past Mount Fuji and north, north, until we come nearly to the topmost region of Honshu Island – home of Tokyo to the south. We hop a bus from there and wind our way to our first ski stop: the Aomori prefecture, the northernmost prefecture in Japan’s Tohoku region, or said simpler: the tippy top of Japan’s main island.
It’s February, so it’s snowing. That’s nearly a sure thing thanks to – of all places – Siberia. Wildly cold and strong winds push northwestward from there in the months of January and February, drinking up moisture from the Sea of Japan as they cross. Then – bam! – those now moisturesoaked winds are stopped short by the mountains of this region which sit pretty much right up against that Sea. Nature has no choice but to drop the moisture there, in the form of deep, soft, light and pretty much perfect snow.
At the small resorts we sample over the 10 days, you find that magically light snow nearly every run of every day. One run, my friends all dive into the woods and I decide to stay on a marked trail. Alone – lonely in just the right way – my heart stretches wide as I carve perfect powder turns, solitary in the thick falling snow, buffered for a moment from the rest of the world. At peace.
But this is not all cushy. The Japan/ Indy Pass trip drops you into true Japanese life. The food is unique – and challenging for some (bus stops at 7/11 for the wild Japanese snacks they carry there are a must), but a worthy adventure. Each meal is served with such love – tiny and bright containers display little bites of raw fish, pickled okra, fermented seaweed with a delicate touch that just says “We’re proud,” – that you just have to try it.
Some rooms are semi-western, but by the time we’re deep into the trip, I’m sleeping on a mat in a stark room with a tiny lamp. But they understand true luxury: a brook babbles right outside my window, lulling me to sleep.
Don’t bother bringing a bathing suit: Japanese culture in these true parts don’t accept them. You’ll get used to it soon enough, since the many hot springs – located right at your hotels and in unique spots along the tiny towns – draw you in. It is what it is and – like so many things you cast aside from American life while deep in Japan – it’s not a big deal once you embrace it.
And then there are the surprises that you can only find off the beaten path. At dinner one night at our last stop, Semi Onsen Ryokan, a true Japan staying experience just up the road from Geto Kogen Ski Resort, our hosts offer an after dinner entertainment experience. Of course we say yes.
There, in our Japanese robes and fresh from a soak in their natural hot springs, we take in the “Furyu-odori,” a UNESCO protected dance that has been performed in this small town for – get this – more than a thousand years. We feel humbled by the performance, which clearly comes from inspiration deep in their souls. And when they ask us to share if we think other possible visiting Americans would enjoy it, we are quick to say yes. We are the pioneers. It makes sense they ask.
That’s the thing about going Indy. Just as it happens in America, smaller resorts in more remote spots hold beautiful secrets. Japow is incredible. Japow as a pioneer is life-changing.