Road Trip Leads to Backcountry Adventure

Me with Furano-dake in the background.

Hot, isn't she? A bit puffy perhaps.....?
Oh, and I was chewing gum AND eating snow (at the same time).

My fabulous friendly friends.

Me and Tree.

Yep, that's me.

Such nice girls...
from left: Sherri, Katy (kneeling) and Kate

FREE! WHEE!! YIPPEE!!!

On Friday Katy and I picked-up our FREE rental mini-van in the heart of Sapporo. (The rental car company was giving rental mini-vans to foreigners to survey how we enjoy traveling in Hokkaido.) After some savvy city driving and a last-minute decision to pick up some rental snowshoes we headed out into the country. We picked up Sherri along the way and arrived at our hostel in Furano at 10PM.

Early Saturday morning the Hostel Guy recommended a good place to snowshoe and we headed towards Daisetsu-san National Park (the biggest NP in Japan). Our destination was superb!! Cheap accommodation, a fabulous onsen (now my top-ranking!), good company (many backcountry outdoor enthusiasts), a kitchen and immediate access to the mountains.

We snowshoe'd up to one of the peaks surrounding Tokachi-dake at about 11;30 AM on Saturday. I strapped my board on my back 'cause there's no way I'm walkin' all the way up and not riding down....

On Sunday we decided to do it again but this time each of us carried our boards up (for an all-girl, all-snowboarder backcountry trip!) The weather was beautiful and it had snowed during the night. The snow was the driest snow I've ever seen.

The trip down is always too short! As is the weekend....