Nigel was in town, so along with Chris, a whole gang of us dragged him up to Tokachidake Onsen to explore the Onsen Slope and Kaun Bowl above the onsen.
Our party was a veritable gaggle of skiers, all looking forward to the famed high-altitude powder of the valley above Tokachi-dake Onsen.
It was the first time for any of us to bootpack the entry from just next to Ryounkaku Onsen. It lived up to its fame as an altogether head-scratcher of a start to a ski tour.
With hearts in throats, we all made it down unscathed.
The original plan for the day was to ski both Onsen Slope and Kaun Bowl. Something like this. To our dismay, however, all south- and west-facing slopes were baked. Grabby, hard-to-ski crust on top of soft snow.
Views were great, but we decided early on to bail on getting any higher on Onsen Slope, and made a beeline for the northern-aspect slopes of Kaun Bowl.
By this time, we’d already climbed quite high along Onsen Slope, and were being treated to fantastic views of the Hokoiwa Chutes on Furano-dake.
Bailing on the Onsen Slope meant we had to find a spot to drop down to the west, down into the Sanpozan-sawa gully. From there we would gain the ridge that would take us up to Kaun Bowl.
The western-aspect drop down to Sanpozan-sawa gully was predictably heinous. Breakable crust on steep, soft snow. I’ve skied worse crust before though, so I had that consolation.
Once we were on the northern-aspects of Kaun Bowl’s looker’s right ridge, things were plain sailing. No more crust. Just pure powder to look forward to on the descent. The entire bowl called out to us as we ascended.
We climbed to around 1600m before the powder started to turn to dust-on-crust. Timbah and Tim pushed on up to the 1700m plateau, but it didn’t really do them any favours in terms of good-snow skiing.
From 1600m to around 1300m, we enjoyed some great dry powder skiing.
Our original foray up Onsen Slope had burned through our daylight hours, so we decided to call it a day after just one run. In the Sanpozan-sawa Gully, we split the group into two. One half would ski down to the Furano-dake trailhead, and the other half would climb back up to the Tokachi-dake Onsen carpark and bring the cars down to us.
In hindsight, it probably would have been just as quick for all of us to don skins again and skin over to the Tokachidake Onsen carpark, and brave the bootpack back up. But I was keen to see the Sanpozan-sawa Creek exit, so hats off to the car shuttle boys for climbing back out to get the cars.
The Sanpozan-sawa Creek exit was tolerable. A little more flat than I had expected. But plenty of snow, and not too much side-stepping required. A bit of a drag on a snowboard (sorry Nigel), but all things considered, not terrible.
