You wouldn’t eat the same meal every single day all-winter-long, so why just stick to the one resort? When you’re visiting Japan for your first ever JaPow holiday, you’ll find that all around Hokkaido, in particular the surrounding areas near Niseko, there are countless resorts with lesser known names, minimal crowds and double the pow.
And when we say double the pow, we mean it. To put it in perspective to all the powder hounds out there, Niseko receives an average of 12m – 15m of snow per season, Kiroro receives 21m.
It’s that good! Which is exactly why our People Op’s Coordinator, Joël Telford, thought it would be a good time to go and show a bunch of our crew what makes this lesser known resort so special.
But what’s the point in just telling you how good Kiroro’s pow? The entire blog may as well only say ‘Kiroro = good’ if that’s the case, so we wanted to give you all the nitty gritty deets and logistics of heading off from Niseko for a day trip. To do that, we got Joël to give us the full rundown on her day!
Joël’s Day:
6 AM: “I got up at 6. I normally try to give myself at least an hour when I wake up because I just like to have a shower; I need to have something to eat, need a coffee – and I hate being rushed – AND then I gotta clear snow off the car, which is not always a quick job here in Niseko.”
7 AM: “I left my house at 7 for the first pickup, which was Hanna. I picked her up at about 7:15, and then headed straight to Hirafu to pick the boys up at 7:30 – where I picked them up from Seicomart because I’m too scared to drive to Lower Hirafu at the moment because the road is so slippery!”
“From there I went back to Kutchan and picked up some guys from another one of our staff accom’s, and then from there, we left probably about 8 a.m. and drove to Kiroro.”
8 AM: “We left at about 8, had some music on, everyone was just vibing and was so excited because it was the most beautiful bluebird day and the day before quite windy, with most of the mountain on windhold, so with pretty much the whole resort being open we knew we were going to get a lot of untracked powder.”
“we knew we were going to get a lot of untracked powder. so everyone was pretty pumped.”
9 AM: “At 9 o’clock, I wanna say, we got there. Everyone got ready by the car, got their gear on – the lifts don’t open till 9, so it kind of worked out well. And then we all went and bought tickets, and Kiroro offers a discount for anyone with a residence card. So, I think a day pass is normally like ¥8,000, but if you show your residence card at the counter, it’s ¥5,300, so everyone was pretty stoked about that.”
“Everyone geared up and started riding, found some pretty cool un-tracked runs, everyone was pretty pumped about it.”
“It was everyone’s first time there, except for me and Hanna. I’d been twice before, and Hanna had been once before, but both times we’d gone there’d been heaps of wind holds, so it was cool to get to explore the whole resort because it was such a beautiful day.”
10 AM: “Hanna and I split from the group for one run to do a bit of filming, and then we went back up because we couldn’t find everyone. After that, we went exploring and thought we went through a gate, but we don’t really know if it was a gate – but we ended up having to boot pack for about 40 minutes to get out.”
“Everyone geared up and started riding, found some pretty cool un-tracked runs, everyone was pretty pumped about it.”
10:30 AM “At this stage, we started stressing and realising that we definitely did not go down a gate. We were like, ‘sh*t, at least we’ve got like plenty of daylight left’. And then we were literally thinking worst case scenario, but I don’t think I’ve ever done such a big boot pack in my whole life, so that was really fun.”
“We were just trying to keep our cool. I think we made a good team because we were both staying so positive but after we got out we were both honest and it turns out that both of us were freaking out.” – Hanna
11 AM: “Once we came out of that, we just kind of laid on the ground for about 10 minutes before we rode down and found everyone in the cafeteria. Everyone had already had some lunch, but me and Hannah just wanted to get a quick snack.
So I just had a little pork cutlet sandwich and Hannah had some form of like pudding dessert. “
1 PM: “It was pretty funny when we all finally ran into each other and they were like, ‘Oh my God, so glad you guys didn’t come’ because they had also got lost. But then we had to tell them that we actually ended up following them and that’s why we got lost, which everyone found pretty funny.”
“Everyone assumed we would have been done for the day and we’d had enough after that big hike. We’re obviously tired, but we thought, you know, let’s keep going. So, we went for another like 3 or 4 laps.”
2 PM: “We’d found this really good spot earlier, so, we went back there and just lapped it over and over, which was pretty sick.”
3PM: “We met up back with them at 3, and then just did a quick bathroom break. Some of the guys got some Kiroro stickers, little souvenirs and stuff, and then we all piled in the car and started to head back.”
4PM: “We were really lucky, all the roads were quite clear, and not too icy or slippery, and then we headed back on the hour-long drive.”
“Everyone was a lot quieter on the way back because everyone was absolutely buggered.”
5PM: “After getting back to Hirafu we did the reverse drop off. And then me and Hanna did a quick stop at Lawson’s, cause we were starving. We hadn’t really had much for lunch, so we both got some onigiri and some fried chicken and had a little parked car date which was really nice.”
6PM: “Normally I would go to the gym, but I was absolutely buggered afterwards.
So I just took a nice hot shower and chilled with my housemates, who had built an ice bar outside our place, it was hilarious.”
“….I feel like this makes it sound like I literally don’t even work but I swear I’m always checking Slack on the chairlift!”
Sound like an epic day out chasing pow? Why not look into a day in Kiroro as part of a Multi-Resort Tour Trips Package! Otherwise, Kiroro is also offered as part of our Premium Private Lessons and Lift Accessed BC Guiding, and if you get in quick, you’ll even score 20% off all Rhythm inclusions for the month of March!
