My, what a beautiful website you have...

We’ve updated the website! As our focus has shifted to backcountry guiding over the last few years, our old website (which talked a lot about resort skiing) got a bit out of date.

We’ve tried to set up the new website to do a few things:

  1. Clearly explain what we do. For all those people who have commented that we’re very good at delivering good times in the mountains and very bad at business - we hope this is an improvement.

  2. Introduce our trips to New Zealand. We’ve been skiing and guiding here for years (with local companies) so it’s great to team up with them to offer our own trips.

  3. Set out a bunch of information to help people plan their trips a bit better. Most of the people who end up on our website are looking to get away from the crowds and see a less touristy side of Japan/NZ. Unfortunately a lot of the information on the web doesn’t really help with that plan. Hopefully this makes it a bit easier for people looking to head into the backcountry.

This website overhaul has been done during weather breaks in an otherwise busy New Zealand guiding season, so there are a few bits and pieces that still need to be finished (and no doubt a few typos or broken links). We’ll get to those over the next few storm days. Unless the surf is good. It’s a hard life. In the meantime, we hope you find something useful or interesting and that we’ve done a better job of explaining what we’re about. And if you do find a glaring problem leave us a comment.

See you in the hills!

John

Kurodake dates for 2019

Hey all. Kurodake have updated their website and posted their dates for 2019. For those who aren’t familiar, Kurodake closes for “maintenance” during January and normally reopens progressively in February (the main gondola usually opens at the start of Feb, and the pair lift opens about 2 weeks later).

Not this year. They’re closing on the 4th of January, and reopening the gondola on the 15th of March. The pair lift reopens on the 29th of March.

I’ll be chasing this up with some friends who work there to see if there’s any more to the story. But it certainly sounds like bad news for this season.

Custom trip tips

Custom trip tips

So you’re doing the research and trying to rally the troops for a winter trip. Maybe you’re looking for a 3 day “All you can slay” powder buffet in Hokkaido. Or a 10 day balanced diet of pow, ramen and onsens. Or maybe you want to put first tracks into some chutes in the Craigieburn Range, or link up some alpine passes in Aoraki-Mt Cook National Park.

Whatever you’re planning, here are some tips from us to get the most out of your trip.