Japan wasn’t having the best snow season, and whilst Iwate was faring better than many other Honshu ski areas, the snow at Shimokura wasn’t its usual primo self. It hadn’t snowed for a few days and due to warm temperatures the snow was uncharacteristically heavy and a bit crusty on the lower elevations. The trees were somewhat tracked, which was to be expected considering that Shimokura is no longer a complete secret and that a few days had passed since snowfall. And whilst we still had some fun checking out the terrain, Shimokura is a resort where you essentially want the snow to be good because there’s so little on offer on-piste.

In-bounds there were 3 designated official tree areas yet both Fun Cruise and Drop were roped off. There was adequate cover so it wasn’t really obvious as to why they weren’t deemed “open” and it sounds like this is a common occurrence. The ropes didn’t seem to deter people in these two zones as well as the undesignated areas, and it seemed that the resort management and ski patrollers have relaxed somewhat over the years, but they still have a long way to go before being defined as progressive.

Our thoughts on the pros and cons of the ski area are outlined on the Shimokura Ski Resort overview page.

Whilst we were in Hachimantai we revisited Matsukawa Onsen, checked out Panorama, did some backcountry touring, and also went out with Hachimantai Cat Skiing.
See our video here

We spent one day at Hachimantai Resort and had a great time ripping up all the fresh powder. No one else was there except a handful of army blokes, so there were plenty of freshies. The quality of the powder was superb and it felt bottomless because no one else had been in the trees. The trees on the left offer short runs that are a bit of fun. The terrain on skiers’ right of the resort is delightfully steep, is a little avalanche prone (so take care), but it’s requires extreme sneakiness to get in there.

Our thoughts on the pros and cons of Hachimantai are outlined on the main page.

We stayed at the Shizukuishi Prince Hotel which provided lots of creature comforts, and it took about 40 minutes to get around to Hachimantai.
See our video here