After a few hours skiing 40cm of great powder at Nozawa, we decided to head off to Myoko Kogen for an afternoon of (hopefully) exploring Seki Onsen backcountry.
Seki Onsen has gained a bit of a reputation in the last few years as a great resort to enjoy powder. Out of all the resorts in Myoko Kogen, Seki Onsen is the closest to the Japan Sea, and gets the most snow. Last season saw the base get to 4m at Nozawa Onsen – a pretty good year. Seki Onsen had over six. The resort does hardly any grooming, and although there are only 2 lifts, they provide 300 metres of vertical on the same fall line.
The resort used to have more lifts and terrain, they closed the lifts but the runs are still accessible from the top. This means there is substantial lift accessed uncontrolled terrain. It all funnels back to the main lift, one lap taking about 30 mins.
Unfortunately when we visited the top lift was closed due to high winds. The lower run was pretty chopped up and a crust had formed, so we didn’t stick around for too long. There were a lot of wistful looks out to the skiers right of the resort at what could have been if only the top lift was running.
After Seki, we drove up the road to a place called Tsubame Onsen. It is a small ski area which was closed about 4 years ago. We were hoping there would be something we could quickly hike up and then slide, unfortunately it was pretty flat. The mountains that surround Tsubame Onsen are absolutely spectacular, and although we didn’t ski it was worth the trek up. Before we left Tsubame we popped in to the Iwatoya, a ryokan filled with memorabilia seemingly from the Addams Family house including several stuffed animals. Their bath was fantastic with an inside and outside bath, the outside bath offering fantastic views of the surrounding mountains.