About a month ago, we were all geared up and excited with our plans to ski Etai-dake on one particular weekend in February. When that weekend came around, however, it was following a huge storm which closed Route 94. So we had to scrap those plans.
It was now mid-March, and we were back for revenge.
This time around it was just me and Timbah. The weather was marginal, calling for cloud and wind from around 10am till noon, and then clear skies.
We headed north from Sapporo early though, leaving my place at around 4am.
We arrived at the base of the mountain just as the rising sun was painting Etai-dake’s broad northeast face a beautiful pastel pink.
We had skins on and were skinning away from the car at around 7am. With such gorgeous weather, I was surprised not to see more vehicles at the trailhead.
The one question mark for us on this trip was the crossing of the Etaibetsu-gawa River. Everything I’d read about the peak made it sound like we’d have no trouble finding a snow bridge, but the access down to the river was relatively steep. Adding in the cold-morning bullet-proof spring snow surface, and it became relatively technical too.
We made it down without incident though, and the snow bridges were solid.
Once across the river, we were now on the approach proper to the summit.
The mellow approach to the summit saw us skinning through gorgeous old-growth forest. Beautiful large specimens of dakekanba white birch and black pine dotted the perfect snow fields that stretched out in front of us.
We stopped at the base of one particularly old-looking dakekanba white birch for a snack. With no summer trail to the peak, winter is the only time this tree would come in contact with humans during the year.
We were now at the base of the final steep climb up to the summit plateau.
The snow on this northeast face was thin windslab on top of a much harder surface underneath. We kept as much as possible to the shallow ridge up to a cornice-free edge of the summit plateau. Snow conditions were less than ideal, and I made a mental note to visit again in February next season.
The blue sky came and went. Wintery snow squalls pelted us with wind and snow, before disappearing again.
Once on the summit plateau, we braced ourselves against the westerly wind and walked to a point on the plateau where we had views of the Japan Sea and the heaving bulk of Shokanbetsu-dake to the west.
The sun shone against the last heavy squall, just as another squall threatened to envelop us again from the north.
The descent was a mix of hard-to-ski breakable wind-pack and hard-to-ski breakable crust.
Some would say perfect character- and skill-building conditions.
Once again I promised myself that we’d come back in February.
On the return across the river, we followed the skin tracks of one other skier who had arrived after us. These crossed the river at a different point, with a much nicer approach from the forestry road. Once back at the forestry road we donned skins again for the 2km or so walk out.
The snow conditions were such that we weren’t motivated to lap the upper northeast face, so we were back at the car by 11am. After quick lunch at the car, we were soaking in the Hokuryu onsen by just after noon.
