Posted on Jan 29, 2024
0
NENWWE
Posted on Jan 29, 2024
0 0
NENWWE
6.2km

Distance

3.5 hours

Time

730m

Ascent

1748m

Highest point

6.5/10
Difficulty
Snow Icon | Hokkaido Wilds
Dec-Mar

Best season

TOPO
Sandan-yama's (三段山, 1748m) Higashi-no-tani 東の谷 is a spicier descent off one of Hokkaido's most popular backcountry ski peaks. It's a short but sharp drop into a playful half-pipe-like gully that will keep more freeride-oriented skiers entertained, just in case the bottomless powder in the tree runs on the classic route don't. This route still hits the impressive summit of Sandan-yama, taking in the full grandeur of the Tokachi Range amphitheater rimmed by Tokachi-dake, Furano-dake, and Kamihorokamettoku-yama.

We visited this route on Jan 21, 2024

Haidee and Greg contributed photos to this post.

Last updated Feb 20, 2024

Topomap

Route Map

Need to know details

Location

Sandan-yama sits in a grand alpine amphitheatre surrounded by Tokachi-dake 十勝岳 (2,077m), Furano-dake 富良野岳 (1,912m) and Kamihorokamettoku-yama 上ホロカメットク山 (1,920m) in the Tokachi Range 十勝連峰 in the southern end of the Daisetsuzan Range, in central Hokkaido. The start/end point and ascent route is very similar to the standard Sandan-yama to-the-peak-and-back route, but the descent is via the short but steep Higashi-no-tani (literally East Valley) and half-pipe-esque gully.

General notes

Sandan-yama is somewhat of an anomaly in the backcountry ski world in Japan; the Japanese national government promotes it as an ungroomed, unpatrolled, uncontrolled, no-lifts ski area (source). As such, it’s a mountain that gets the skier satisfyingly and somewhat easily onto an alpine peak without crampons or steep climbs. If descending via the normal main face (see the route here), it can be an extremely safe up-and-back ski that is supremely accessible. This Higashi-no-tani descent, however, spices things up a little. About 1/3 of the way down the main face, it’s possible to drop off to the skier’s far right into the first main gully separating Sandan-yama from Maetokachi 前十勝 (1646m).

The main upper gully is steep in places, with a couple of safer spurs as well as some gully features. This upper gully is nicely suited to a few laps. The exit is via a wide half-pipe-like gully with assuringly mellow slopes to the skier’s left, and steeper cliff-like features to the right. It’s a very playful, albeit more spicy, exit off this popular mountain.

Hut
Hakuginso Lodge (full details here)

Hakuginso Lodge (吹上温泉保養センター白銀荘, 1,020m) is a beautiful lodge perfectly situated for access to a number of excellent ski touring and hiking routes in the Tokachi region of the Daisetsu National Park. As a base for backcountry ski touring, it is second to none. Accessible by car, and already at just over 1,000m in altitude, the lodge has some of the driest powder snow in Hokkaido on its doorstep. The onsen at the lodge and just down the road are also second to none. All this for a paltry 3,100yen (3,250yen in the winter) a night.

Route details

From the Hakuginso parking area, skin southeast across the embankment and through the wide clearing in the forest. This clearing is variously referred to as ‘Sandan-yama Slope’ 三段山スロープ (source) and ‘Sandan-yama National Ski Area’ 国設三段山スキー場 (source). The vast majority of skiers, snowboarders, and throngs of snowshoers simply follow the summer trail up to the peak, so we suggest you do the same. It’s easy, and there’s no tricky technical sections. It’s possible to comfortably get to the peak without doing any kickturns at all.

On the ascent, keep an eye out for good descent possibilities on the upper 1/3 of the climb. There are some nice short faces and gully-like powder-pockets here and there that are worth hitting before dropping into Higashi-no-tani. Overall, if you want to ski Higashi-no-tani, it’s worth keeping towards the skier’s right on the descent.

At exactly 1500m in altitude, it’s time to head hard to the skier’s right and down Higashi-no-tani. The steeper section of the drop is relatively short; only around 150m in vertical descent. You might want to lap this a couple of times to get your money’s worth.

At the terminus of the steeper section, you’ll now be in a satisfyingly wide half-pipe-esque gully. The gully steepness is sufficient to keep speed up, carving high up on the walls. At around 1,150m in altitude, it’s a good idea to leave the gully and get back onto the main uptrack. If you time things right, you should be able to do this without having to do any side-stepping.

Once back on the main ridge, keep towards skier’s right of the main uptrack, through the trees, for some quality, mellow untracked turns back to the Hakuginso carpark, and a long, hot soak in one of Hokkaido’s best onsen hotsprings.

Route Timing
Up | 2hrs
Down | 1hrs

A simple up-and-back mission to the summit and back, relatively taking your time, will take around 3.5hrs.

Transport

Public transport:

From JR Kami-Furano Train Station (上富良野駅; location), there is a bus, run by the Kami-Furano Town Bus company, that runs to the Hakuginso Lodge. You’ll want to catch the tokachidake-onsen-yuki (十勝岳温泉行き) bus from the train station and get off at the Fukiagehoyo-senta-hakuginso (吹上保養センター白銀荘) bus stop; location). As of January 2023, there were three buses per day there (08:52, 12;49, 16:31) and three returning (10:01, 13:51, 17:40). Timetable here. The fare is around 500yen one way, and it takes around 30 minutes. Note that skis should be packed in a bag of some sort . We use simple plastic ski bags on buses here, as they pack down to nothing when touring.

By car:

Hakuginso Lodge (location) has ample parking in their carpark. Note that backcountry users are requested to park on the eastern side of the carpark (see this diagram).

Physical maps
Official Topo Map: Tokachidake (十勝岳) – map no. NK-54-7-8-2

NOTE: The official 1/25000 topo map(s) above can be purchased for 350yen from Kinokuniya bookstore next to Sapporo Station or online (in Japanese).

Aspect
The main aspect skiers are exposed to on the descent and/or ascent is Northeast. Other aspects that may also be encountered while following the route outlined on this page include: Northwest, West, East. Therefore, keep an eye on the weather forecast a few days ahead of your trip to monitor wind, snow, and temperature. Also, since this route is in the general vicinity of the Furano area, consider looking at the Furano Avalanche Center (on Facebook). They issue sporadic observations throughout the season which may give extra insight into avalanche conditions.

Snow and
route safety

As with any above-the-treeline winter routes in Hokkaido, this route is particularly susceptible to high winds and bone-chilling temperatures. At the lodge it is regularly below -15°C, so with windchill at Mt. Sandan’s peak, it will quite happily get to below -25°C. Don’t take this mountain lightly. Higashi-no-tani is steep, and a classic terrain trap. Skiers should be confident of snow stability before dropping into any steeper terrain features in this area.

Sandan-yama Higashi-no-tani Difficulty Rating

Category

Grade

Points

Strenuousness

Vertical Gain

B

35

Time ascending

D

0

Technicality

Altitude

A

10

Hazards

B

12

Navigation

C

6

Totals

63/100

GRADES range from A (very difficult) to D (easy).  More details here. Rating rubric adapted from Hokkaido Yukiyama Guidebook 北海道雪山ガイド.

Weather forecast

Windy.com weather forecast for Sandan-yama Higashi-no-tani
Onsen nearby

The Hakuginso Lodge is an onsen – a very nice one at that. They charge 700yen for day visitors. You can stay overnight for just 3,250yen (see details here). 10 minutes walk down the road from the lodge is the natural, free, mixed-gender Fukiage Onsen (location). The Ryounkaku Onsen (location – 1000yen per person – accessible by same bus that gets you to Hakuginso Lodge) has an incredible view, and they also offer lunch.

Extra Resources

Guide Options

If you’d like to ski this route and/or explore other peaks in central Hokkaido together with a local certified guide, get in touch with Yasuko Kikuchi. Born and raised in Hokkaido, she’s a JMGA-certified guide now based in Sapporo. Her outdoor experience is broad and worldwide, having worked as a Canadian Ski Patrol member, and has sumitted a number of 6,000m+ peaks around the world. She speaks good English, and can arrange transport to and from central Hokkaido. In addition to Yasuko, also see a full list of English-speaking Hokkaido Mountain Guides Association (HMGA) guides on the HMGA website here

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Show Full Route Notes Close Route Notes

Route Trip Notes

Another weekend day, another ski line to fill in the blanks on the topomap canvas that is the Tokachi Range. Today it would be a spicier descent of Sandan-yama for when the main alpine face is not 100% delivering the deep powder turns the area would otherwise offer.

In all reality, most of the time I’d recommend everyone just ski the main face, and then through the trees. But the skier’s far right of the main face consists of some steeper, lappable terrain that is less likely to be tracked out – to make the most of it, skiers will most often hike back up to the main face to ski the gullies a couple of times.

We arrived at the Hakuginso Lodge parking lot at around 6:30am, and it was cold. Overnight it had been down to -20℃. The morning was not much warmer. We hurried to get our gear on. At one point we started chatting to two foreign skiers parked next to us, who were waiting for the rest of their crew to show up. Later on Tim messaged me to say they had tried heading to the summit of Tokachi-dake but got turned around due to weather and not having crampons.

“Let’s get going,” insisted Haidee. “My toes are freezing!”

So we headed off, skinning fast up the well-packed trail to thaw out our extremities.

On that initial ascent up the skin-up only ski area, we passed Takikawa-san and Kishigami-san, leading a group of novice skiers. I’d met them several times at the Hokkaido Outdoor Forum.

Being the northern side of the Tokachi Range, it was only half way up the mountain that we finally got some rays of sun. These gave us a little more warmth to work with, but it was still cold. With no wind to speak of at this point though, we were comfortable.

Further down the range, however, Asahidake and all her contours were looking great in the morning light.

It wasn’t until around the third step (san-dan 三段) that the sun peeked over the top of the summit.

Overall, with little fresh snow over the preceding few days, most of the main face of Sandan-yama was very tracked up. Higashi-no-tani, where we planned to ski, however, was looking untracked and very nice.

Image by Greg Beliakov

Once we got to the main summit ridge, we realized that the calm conditions we were enjoying lower down were simply the result of us being in the lee of the wind. A strong westerly was whipping across the summit, driving snow and ice across the surface. The steaming cliffs of Maetokachi billowed to the east.

The summit itself, however, was out of the wind. In slowly worsening conditions, contrast waning, we quickly took some photos and transitioned for the downhill.

On the descent, the main focus was on trying to find some untracked soft snow between the large wind-scoured patches.

We’d thought it might be impossible to find untracked soft snow on the upper part of the face, but to our delight, there was a shallow gully just skier’s right of the uptrack, completely untracked.

At around 1500m, we dropped down to the skier’s far right of the main face, into the Higashi-no-tani. It was a broad slope to start, later separating into a couple of spurs and gullies. The snow was good.

The slope fed into a relatively wide gully that would lead us back to the ski slope above Hakuginso Lodge. Two other skiers followed behind us down the main slope. They remarked that they often ski Higashi-no-tani, but were surprised at how relatively little snow there was for this time of year.

“Usually all these bushes are covered,” one said. “There seems to be less snow this year.”

At around 1,150m, we skied up the steepening gully walls up to the main Sandan Slope. We skied the trees to the skier’s right of the main slope, enjoying some untracked turns among the trees.

Soon we had to get back onto the main slope. Just as we did, we came across Bob and Stefan. I’d been enjoying their Facebook updates from their Hokkaido ski trip, and I recognized them from their photos.

We chatted a bit before Haidee, Greg and I continued the quick blast down the Sandan Slope back to Hakuginso Lodge.

Once back at the van, we packed up and headed to the onsen at the lodge.

Comments | Queries | Reports

Done this route to Sandan-yama Higashi-no-tani, or others nearby? Thinking of doing it? Please post any feedback, reports, or queries here. Thanks!

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Sandan-yama Higashi-no-tani Difficulty Rating

Category

Grade

Points

Strenuousness

Vertical Gain

B

35

Time ascending

D

0

Technicality

Altitude

A

10

Hazards

B

12

Navigation

C

6

Totals

63/100

GRADES range from A (very difficult) to D (easy). Hazards include exposure to avalanche and fall risk. More details here. Rating rubric adapted from Hokkaido Yukiyama Guidebook 北海道雪山ガイド.