another day in niseko

day three on the mountain and it might be our last one of the niseko portion *insert sadface*, barring any magical dumps in the next 36 hours.  with the snow forecast predicting 1-3cm everyday during our stay, we’ve had some mercy from the snow gods and have had knee deep runs every one of the three days we’ve ridden.  to be truthful about niseko, lineups do exist…  albeit at 5-10 mins at worst on a friday but I’m not as optimistic of what it’ll be on saturday so my plans for the day will revolve around handmade soba noodles,  spicy potato foam ramen and maybe an onsen in between.

we were fortunate enough to have one of marsha’s friends,  auggie, show us the goods on hirafu and hanazono yesterday morning.  we lapped the top treeline of hirafu until our legs were wobbly,  grabbed some mouth watering steamed meat buns at boyoso (which didn’t last long enough in my hands to grab a picture) to re-energize ourselves and then rounded out the day lapping some gated trees by the hirafu gondola.

then this morning,  we wake up to 1 cm on the snow report,  3 closed lifts up top due to high winds and and the worst lineup we’ve seen thus far this trip (about 50 people deep at the base), we were half regretting our decision to head up.  10 minutes later, i’ve realized that the japanese are horribly inept at measuring…

for dinner, we were planning on grabbing a bowl of the infamous miso ramen topped with potato foam at ramen kazahana but unfortunately they were closed tonight.  with the snow coming down pretty heavy and everybody starving we hopped next door to scarf down some hotpot, grilled mackerel and chicken karaage.

we’ve still got 36 hours left in niseko but this leg of the trip definitely seemed to go by a little too quick; maybe it’s the jet lag talking…