i flew into Chitose, Hokkaido’s main airport; a short train ride from the city of Sapporo. There I met up with the rest of the Kiwi crew who were already in Japan: Will Jackways, Quentin Robbins and of course our ambassador/translator Shinji. Hokkaido is Japan’s northern most Island, and is also referred to as the ‘stingray’ (take a brief look at the satellite view and it’s not hard to see why.) Tomamu resort is located near the heart of Hokkaido, within its frozen interior. The snow here is slightly less abundant than other resorts located nearer the coast like the renowned ? Niseko. However the colder, dryer conditions bring better snow quality and more chance of clear spells between the raging storms that form off the coast of Siberia and circle their way South, splurging arctic havoc on anything and everything that falls within their path.

The journey to Tomamu takes you inland, the opposite direction from Sapporo and the infamous Niseko. Barren fields blanketed in snow and seemingly abandoned towns flickered outside the window as we picked up speed. Beer swirled down the back of our throats as we bantered each
other with cheeky conversation. We were in high spirits; Tomamu was a new destination for the crew and the promise that we would be ‘pimped out’ had an enticing ring to it.

Stepping off the train at Tomamu station we were greeted by friendly staff who helped us with our bags and we soon found ourselves rolling in an

ultra wide bus, specially shipped to the resort as a people mover. Once the preliminary Japanese style polite introductions and handshakes
were completed we were ushered to our rooms, yes rooms, in fact we had our own floor high up in one of the two sets of twin towers at the resort. The towers resembled the late ‘Twin Towers’ of New York and are the only accommodation at the resort. The result is there are very few other buildings around, keeping the area in its natural form apart from, of course, four rather large skyscrapers. The rooms turned out to be very plush. Things were looking good for the promised ‘pimp tour’.

The sun was already plummeting behind the snowy mountains in the west and I was feeling a bit jaded from the days travel, but keen to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak, we donned our gear and jumped on the lift at the bottom of our tower. A quick scout around and we soon found some pockets of fresh powder right off the chairlift that was well lit up by the surrounding lights. After a few runs and blurred face-shots we called it a night, as we wanted to save some energy for the next days activities. Shinji had lined us up to be taken cat-boarding.

The following day couldn't come around soon enough. After a safety briefing we piled in the back of the cat and started crawling our way up the windy goat track into the wilderness.

t he clouds were rolling past overhead, but were fortunately broken up by frequent sunny breaks. The cat was able to get us close to the peak, and we hiked the remaining couple of hundred meters to the top. The terrain was spread out in an open bowl before it funneled its way down through the tree line, where it met up with the track we had come-up. The terrain on offer wasn’t terribly challenging, however there is something to be said for being able to make endless, bottomless turns at your leisure, run after run, without having to stress out that some punter is going to beat you to it. After a leg burning morning of hiking and riding we were shuttled down to a tee-pee. There we were greeted with an exquisitely cooked lunch prepared before us within the warm canvas lined interior. With our appetite for hunger and powder well catered for we headed
back to the towers to unwind. Late in the arvo we hit up the pipe for a session, which proved to be better than what we’d come to expect in Hokkaido. Due to the large amounts of snow that the area receives, maintaining a pipe is often not high on the priority list so it was a nice surprise to find a fun one with decently shaped walls.

Tomamu has plenty of attractions and activities on and off the snow. That evening we boosted down to the Ice Park, where there are a series of igloo structures, each with something different going on

inside, from Vodka bars to mini Chapels, all flooded in bright neon lights. There was even a hot air balloon hovering above. The resort is incredibly served, we even found a wave pool, although not that exciting ? it was a wave pool in the middle of the mountains!

On our final day of shredding we decided to go for a little mission and see what we could access. We managed to stumble across a kicker spot, where Will J landed a back seven and a cab three (check out his interview in our last issue.) To round things out and make sure we got the full Tomamu experience, that afternoon we were offered a session on the snowmobiles. They turned
out to be rickety old 250cc machines and it was surprisingly fun to burn round the purpose built track.

While the terrain at Tomamu might not compare with Verbier in Switzerland or Whistler in Canada, if you want to ride untracked powder to your hearts content with scarcely anyone around, on both Cat and chairlift accessed terrain, then look no further. Back that up with all the ‘off-snow’ activities that are available, from the conventional ‘Onsens’ through to less common attractions like the giant swimming complex/wave pool and you’ve got yourself ample reason to check out Tomamu.

Quentin Robbins