After Hakuba, a bus and a local train, we arrived in Yudanaka, the gateway to Yamanouchi, and the Shiga Kogen mountain range, containing around 10 ski resorts, the northern part of which are linked via lifts, so you can go from one resort to the next, very cool...

Early in the morning, we had to take a long-ish bus (1.5h) to the extreme north range of Shiga-Kogen, starting with Okushigakogen. which allows some off piste skiing. It apparently was closed the day before due to a storm, so we had 30cm of fresh snow off the trails, which was pretty awesome, except how I ended up in a low flat point twice, and had to hike back up to a main groomed slope, but damn, the snow was worth it :)

be a nice snowboarder, and ski hearts around skiiers :)

such a pretty blue bird day

'ropes are devices meant to keep fresh powder on the other side' :)

fresh snow

after a great run, we ended up on top of a race course

after arriving at the next door Yakebitaiyama, and they had some 'unpressed snow', just what we needed :)

yeah, this is unpressed, I'll take it :)

The next day, another 30cm storm came by. We naively went to the southern most resort (Yokoteyama) to try the other biggest resort in the range, but sadly the wind shut down most top lifts that day. As a result we had to walk to the base to the nearby resort (Kumanoyu) which didn't go as high, and had some lifts running. Great snow, but not enough vertical or slope:

it was super cold with frigid winds

Kymanoyu was a small-ish resort, but it will do, given that the rest was closed

I then had the "grand" idea that it would be a good idea to ski from the top of Kymanoyu (which was not that high) back to Yokoteyama instead of the longish walk on the road between the 2 resorts. Sadly, it was a pretty flat trail covered with snow, and took a lot of pushing with poles before we finally got to Yokoteyama. We took a half way up lift and honestly the conditions were poor: cold, whiteouts, and no off piste possible. Getting back down to the bottom was actually hard, despite the downhill we were barely moving and so barely got to the bottom in time to catch a shuttle bus back away from that south extreme of the resort.
After loading lift opening reports, we figured out that there was nothing interesting we could ski in the south, so we had to take 2 busses to get back to the north extreme (sadly this burned 1.5 hours). Thankfully, when we go to Yakebitaiyama, the top gondola was running, and we scored some great powder runs until we had to leave to take a bus back:

All in all, the Shiga Kogen range was quite interesting, and we got quite lucky with the snow there. Some other day with less snow, it may be fun to ski it from the northern most resort back down to Hasuike, the middle resort where busses connect to go north or south. Off piste skiing was possible in places, some even had gates, although some other resorts don't allow it or turn a blind eye to it at all. Despite the painful bus rides there and back, we had a really good time and enjoyed the snow there.

Below is one of my best powder runs:

Our last morning in Yudanaka, after a nice breakfast at Ryokan Hakura, Onozawa-San nicely drove us to the park entrance and we got up there bright an early before everyone else, which is good considering how packed with tourists it got by 10:00 when we were about to leave. Thankfully it also opened 10mn early (08;50), giving us a bit of extra time. This also includes a 20-30mn hike on a snowy path from the winter entrance.

The monkeys are of course incredibly cute, and we found plenty of then in the natural onsen in the morning, as a way for them to warm up:

hot vent in the snow

the onsen was full

amazing it can stay in a branch like that

Good Bye Nagano

Haneda

Fuji-San, at sunset, lucky shot from the plane

Lots of driving in Sapporo to get some remote resorts (Rusutsu, Kiroro)

Many deer walking on the road, our rental car had a deer anti collision device for night driving

Mt Yotei was a nice volcano visible from all around. Some people hike it up for back country skiing

We ended up driving a fair amount, the car came it quite handy:

Outside of Niseko, we went to:

After a local train to Nagano, a Shinkansen to Tokyo, a JR train to an airport train to Haneda, a plane to New Chitose Airport, by Sapporo, and then an interesting drive at night in the snow, and a closed road where we had to turn back and drive a longer way around, we finally got to Niseko. Pfew! :)
Niseko United itself is a huge resort made of 4 smaller resorts linked with lifts. We stayed in the southmost one, Annupuri, due to its side country gates and nice open bowls that sometimes are reserved to people who stayed there if the winds close the top interconnecting lifts. Turns out the winds did actually cut off the resorts a few times while we were there, and on our 2nd day skiing there, we had to make a mad traverse from Grand Hirafu's top all the way back to Annupuri and barely made it across over the "do not cross" point while the lifts that help you get higher and make an easy cross, were already closed for wind.

Niseko nicely has side country gates and maps to help you navigate the terrain

single chair lifts, don't fall off :)

we went all the way to Niseko Hanazono, used its side country gates, and I got to see kids towed on a life raft :)

pass observer, cute :)

many quad chairs had a bubble that would hit me over the head, try to throw me off the lift, and if it failed, kept us shielded from the wind

another side country gate, gateway to more powder ;)

A powder run via a side country gate:

The festival, though was fun and pretty, too bad it was almost a 4H drive (return) from Niseko, and the bad traffic jam...

If you're curious about slope and vertical, you can use this:

The minus was that the snowcat was old and slow, and took a long time to painstakenly get around via a slope at low pitch it could barely climb (and our first cat overheated and died, and had to be replaced during the day).

That said, we had some good runs:

Jeff, a coworker, joined us for the trip

go, Arturo!

nearby Mt Yotei volcano

our guide photographer

our tired little snowcat

our new snowcat after the first one broke

Some great pictures from our guide:

the powder was very nice, I could grab it on the way down

there also were a few natural ramps, great job getting this shot

So, despite the cat failure, we got 10 runs (the first ones were a bit shorter) plus an extra one I got by climbing up a steep slope while waiting for the replacement snowcat to show up. Below are 3 different run videos (in 4K if you watch full screen):

Thanks to Niseko Photography for the day.

Our 4th day in Niseko was very windy, and it was a perfect ay to go to the nearby Rusutsu which was more sheltered and ran its top lifts all day while other nearby resorts had to close them (Niseko being very segmented that day).
Rusutsu is not a huge resort, but had plenty of off piste terrain, and interestingly had a few slopes across the street although we didn't have time to go reach them (they seemed there only to cater to people from the hotel, while serious skiiers like us were across the street in the higher peaks).
It wasn't deep powder that way, but still plenty of good snow:

such a 'high' peak, 994 meters :)

warning, 'less' snow... There was plenty for us...

warning 33% degree slope. OMG, so steep ;-)

slopes across the street, where we didn't go

For our last and 5th day in Niseko, we went to Kiroro Snow World, both because of the forecast of more than 20m of freshies, but also because we were going to the Otaru festival of lights that evening.
Kiroro is a bit far away (90mn by car), but it's a very nice resort with lots of off piste options. They have an interesting systme where you register in the morning with them and tell them which gates you are planning on taking and give them your contact info. You are then given a badge that allows you to leave the resort through side gates, and if you don't check in back by end of day, they know to go look for you (rescue will be at your expense of course).

they even have a nice map

as usual, the pricing was quite reasonable, less than $50 for a day without night skiing

ski patrol was by the gates to make sure you had filed for a permit to leave the resort, which we did

snow didn't suck. Not super deep, but the lightest powder I had ever ridden in

Kiroro has 2 bigs peaks, after doing the gate on the left peak, we went for the right one. From there, we walked a fair amount in the snow away from the gate, until we kind of found a way to go down that wasn't very steep at the beginning, until we got to the edge, and fantastic snow there. We had a huge bowl filled with fantastic dry powder, until we got to a traverse path in unimproved terrain with big holes/rivers to avoid. But, it was worth it :)

walk up

poor regis working hard with his ski boots

finally down to an open slope, all you can eat pow

The rest of the day, I rode the powder between the lift and trees on that side:

Needless to say that I really liked Kiroro.

Two nice powder runs (4K if you get them full screen)

We had a very quick look at Otaru while we still had a bit of daylight left, including the local (small) museum, mostly centered around trains:

cool to see snow all the way to the ocean

We then went to see the Snow Light Path festival:

I love you too Arturo :)

Since we were going to Sapporo for the snow and ice festival, we left early to visit what we could during the day. We started with Shiroi Koibito Park, a chocolate cookie factory that pretends to be the charlie chocolate factory with oompa loompas, and while it is touristic, it's funy and pretty :)

Next, we went to historic village of hokkaido, which was a mix of old and new buildings, which felt a bit weird to me. I'd say it's not an essential visit, but it was nice to see with the snow:

Next door was the historical museum of hokkaido, which I found much more interesting:

interesting that Hokkaido lies more south than Paris and gets so much more snow

the Ainu people lived in Hokkaido for a long time before the Japanese came

And eventually we got to our hotel in Sapporo and stored the car in the car elevator :)

many spots for many cars

We then headed to Odori Park and the TV tower for some views:

we then took the stairs down

In the evening, we walked around town a little bit and went for more tower views:

and for fun we took the subway back to the hotel

Of course, the main reason for going to Sapporo was the Sapporo Snow Festival, which is on its own page

Of course, we went to Sapporo for the snow and ice festival, so here are the pictures:

awesome lighting effects