Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort

This guide to Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort, on the eastern flank of Mount Asari above Jozankei, opens with a professional skier's verdict on finding wild powder on a groomed, marked run rather than off piste. It traces how storms rolling in off the Sea of Japan turn to rain or heavy wet snow down in Sapporo but arrive on this ridge as dry, squeaking powder, piling in some winters past four meters deep on slopes between six hundred thirty and eleven hundred meters. Look at the conifers lining the runs, their lower branches bent flat under that load, and watch for snowshoe tracks wandering off into powder fields nobody has skied yet that week.