Backcountry Snow Kite

In March, snow at the bottom of Niseko, which is at low altitude, loosens.On the other hand, for snow kites, it is a good season because snow get stable and wind get strong. Eventhough, after the middle of March, snow melting agents are sprinkled on farms covered with snow, and black mottled ness is formed.

I decided to go to Kiroro, which I had a look on a week before. After searching for a place for snow kites in Hokkaido, the top of Kiroro is the heaven that I finally found. Winds, scenery, snow quality and size are all perfect. It’s adjacent to the ski resort, so if the wind is bad, you can glide on the slopes. If you have equipments and enough skill for wilderness, you can glide endlessly through the backcountry on the hill. Asari-dake can be easy to get by kite. It seems to be able to go to the middle of Yoichi-dake.

many hikers use Kiroro Gondola and walk the trail for Yoichi-dake. This tableland commonly known as “The airfield”, if the weather is good, you can see the Sea of Japan.

Lift-pass will be bought for three or six-hour or one-day lift-pass. Backcountry users are not allowed to buy gondola round-trip tickets. Once you have bought a lift-pass, submit your hiking plan at the Kiroro Mountain Center. They give you a permmittion to exit the gate, it must be returned by 4 p.m.

The mountain center displays the wind speed measured in the morning at the gondola terminal.

The board said 4meter so I brought 12m2 kite. I found wind was too strong, so I went back to the car without ever frying the kite. Then, I changed the kite to 6m2 and rode the gondola again.

On that day, the kite was caught on a tree and damaged, so it ended at the entrance of the airfield. The next day, I went to the vicinity of the top of Asari-dake. However, due to camera problems, I couldn’t shoot any picture of gliding.

As you can see at the end of the video, sometimes strong winds.It is necessary to think about the time to return on foot in case of trouble because there is a blizzard, and there is a case where the position is lost.

A week later, the video is here.

On this day, I lost sight of my position, I was afraid to be in distress. kiteboards, which are fast and change direction frequently, can easily miss their position. If the weather had changed at that time, I should’ve paniced.

If the weather is nice, you can enjoy a 360-degree panorama while enjoying the plateau at an altitude of 1200 meters.