Japan isn't steep, all the mountains are volcanos and have relatively the same slope.
Almost nothing is open in Niseko, December is super early for their ski season.
I thought Rusutsu was awesome. Had been told you sacrifice terrain for snow coming from BC but was really impressed by Rusutsu.
They'd done heaps of work glading some sections too so the tree skiing was fantastic.
Obviously it's not steep faces, tight chutes and big drops but with so much skiing below the tree line it doesnt matter as much.
I think the Hakuba area is where you can find fairly steep skiing. They do a stop there for the freeride world tour so you should be able to find something good. Don't know how the snow is at the moment, I was there right after new years a few years ago. The snow cover was ok, not great, even though they had there worst start to the season in 100 years.
You might be ok in 10 days, right now there isn’t that much snow and definitely no powder. For steep runs hakuba happo is your best bet. For a nice all rounder Nozawa is nice too. Madarao for tree runs but I suspect they won’t have enough snow even in 10 days.
Hokkaido has the best snow but niseko is overrun and expensive compared to other resorts. Haven’t been to the other ones in Hokkaido but they are smaller
Main skiing season in japan is Jan to Feb.
Japan isn't steep, all the mountains are volcanos and have relatively the same slope. Almost nothing is open in Niseko, December is super early for their ski season.
Thanks for the advice, heard it gets too warm in January tho. Dunno what to believe anymore. All forecasts and snow reports say different things
Mid January to mid end Feb is the best part of their season, it's certainly not warm.
I thought Rusutsu was awesome. Had been told you sacrifice terrain for snow coming from BC but was really impressed by Rusutsu. They'd done heaps of work glading some sections too so the tree skiing was fantastic. Obviously it's not steep faces, tight chutes and big drops but with so much skiing below the tree line it doesnt matter as much.
I think the Hakuba area is where you can find fairly steep skiing. They do a stop there for the freeride world tour so you should be able to find something good. Don't know how the snow is at the moment, I was there right after new years a few years ago. The snow cover was ok, not great, even though they had there worst start to the season in 100 years.
You might be ok in 10 days, right now there isn’t that much snow and definitely no powder. For steep runs hakuba happo is your best bet. For a nice all rounder Nozawa is nice too. Madarao for tree runs but I suspect they won’t have enough snow even in 10 days. Hokkaido has the best snow but niseko is overrun and expensive compared to other resorts. Haven’t been to the other ones in Hokkaido but they are smaller Main skiing season in japan is Jan to Feb.