This would be the first of two routes we would hurriedly check out in one day in the hills east and southeast of Horokanai town. Given the mass of terrain around Takadomari-yama, next time we’ll most certainly pick a good weather day and spend much more time exploring.
We arrived at the trailhead at around 8:30am, and were at the summit of Takadomari-yama by around 10am. We skirted to the south along the ridge from there, taking the eastern broad ridge, skinning towards the broad col just before the 606m point. From there, we ripped skins and dropped down to the deep gully floor. Mercifully, there was a day-old skin track heading directly back up the eastern side of the gully to Takadomari-yama. In hindsight, this eastern slope of the main summit ridge would have been a more consistently steep slope to ski. The northerly aspect slope that we skied, while well anchored with trees, started off quite mellow before gradually getting steeper – some elevation was lost to the upper longer, mellow section.
See the actual route we skied at the southern end of this somewhat erratic GPS track I took on our three-day Horokanai ski trip.
The hike back up to Takadomari-yama was steep but relatively quick. We were back at the car and headed towards our next objective – Wassamu Pass – by just after lunch.
2 thoughts on “Horokanai Takadomari-yama”
We were there about a week ago and there’s a huge cornice built up over the eastern side right above the topo line from your map. We spied a couple cracks in the base of the cornice, and decided to ski the opposite aspect, which was phenomenal, if not super steep. Take care if you’re in the area, it was getting more wind-loaded by the minute.
Many thanks for the beta!