It’s not often that we do snowshoeing in Hokkaido. But when the stars align with a good excuse, it can be fun. Today’s excuse was stormy weather the preceding days making us a bit wary of snowpack stability, and Roo not yet quite set up for ski touring.
With stars aligned, we decided to check out Dokuya-mine – peak where access seemed a simple ridge-line climb with a beautiful summit ridge-like plateau. I found it on Yamanomakochan’s blog, where he and his crew skied the route.
“It’s not really a good ski route,” he wrote. “The trees are tight, and it makes sense that the vast majority of people do this peak on snowshoes.”
We got to the trailhead at around 8am. There were three cars parked there already. By the looks of the skintrack, it was clear they were on skis.
“It’s good we’ll have a broken trail,” I remarked. “But maybe we should have been on skis after all.”
The skin track didn’t last for long, however. I’d forgotten that Jozankei Tengu-yama has recently been popular among hardcore Sapporo-based backcountry skiers, with its committing chutes. After crossing the bridge, the skin track veered sharply to the right, and we were left with deep fresh snow laid down over the forestry road extending in front of us.
It had been a very long time since Timbah had been on snowshoes, and despite being on huge high-float snowshoes, it became clear his ankle-high slip-on boots would soon fill with snow. We gave him a couple of Voile straps, which wrapped around his ankles helped keep his trousers over his boots.
We were on the forestry road for just under an hour before we crossed the stream to our left and gained the steep ridge that would mark the climb proper to the summit. It was around here that we realized quickly that we would be taking much longer than the expected five hours return. The snow was deep and the ridge was steep. Far too steep to climb straight up, Timbah was cutting deep zigzags up the slope.
When things got less steep, Haidee took over the trail-breaking for a while. At places, the snow on the uphill side of her was coming up above her hips.
At around 3.5 hours into the hike, we stopped for lunch at 750m. We still had just over 100m vertical to go.
Mercifully, the slope flattened off more and more as we approached the summit. The snow surface was also less deep here, and our progress quickened.
It was also getting windier near the summit. At the summit proper, we were being buffeted by a strong, cold westerly. We took a quick photo and started our descent.
The descent was great. The deep snow that had slowed our progress on the way up was now allowing us to run down the slopes, cushioned with each long step.
Koharu had broken her ankle six months prior, and while recovery had gone well, she was still feeling some stiffness and pain as she descended. So Timbah stayed with her as Haidee and I carried on bounding down the ridge.
Haidee and I took our time along the forestry road, looking for dipper birds in the creek. Koharu and Timbah soon caught up for the final push back to the van.
When we got back to the van, the other cars were gone. We could only imagine the chutes they’d skied on Jozankei Tengu-dake.
It was a great day out, sharing some deep snowshoe walking with a great crew. On our way back to Sapporo, we stopped in at Jozankei Yu-no-hana Onsen for a soak and dinner.
