I like Akakura Kanko, but I'd like it a lot more if I could hit it with the right conditions... Being a weekend warrior, that seems to have eluded me so far... But still, it's a great resort!
Akakura Kanko is a large resort with plenty of slopes, and lots of fun terrain out in the designated 'off-piste' section. The cool thing about Kanko is that even if the conditions aren't the best (like when I went), there's plenty of mellow tree runs to do that will keep you entertained for the whole day. Now, if only I could get there on a bottomless pow day, as there are some awesome looking steeps, pillows, chutes, cliffs that I would love to get my teeth into... And they're not all just concentrated in one area. There are zones all over this resort that would be incredible given the right conditions...
The resort itself stays open well into late spring, so sunny corn skiing on pretty much empty slopes is a blast! The park is decent with a good variety of kickers, plus a box or 2. The lifts are quick, and even during mid-winter, I've never experienced much of a queue. Oh, and the food is pretty good, too, with very large portions, and an outdoor deck to chill on during the spring.
The hike up from the top lift is well walked. So without needing to go back to the car and fetch my snowshoes, I was able to boot it up to the top ridge line just below Sakiyama in about 30~40mins. This gives you a real nice, well spaced tree run back down into the designated 'off-piste' zone and an easy out back to the resort...
Access is super easy off the highway, and parking is right parallel to the lowest bunny slope so very little walking is needed. If you get the right spot, you can ski in, ski out from your car!
Fingers crossed for the right conditions this year!
Akakura Kanko, Myoko, Niigata. Saturday, January 31st.
I was lucky enough to win a ticket from SnowJapan to use at any of the Myoko resorts. Thanks SJ! I received the ticket in the mail and decided to use it that coming Saturday to ride at Akakan with my buddy 'Bushiman', and another friend who was visiting from Tokyo.
I would generally take the highway to Myoko from Nagano city, but on this particular day we decided to use the back roads toward Nojiriko from the city. I like these roads a lot and we got to Akakan in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Not too bad as it takes over an hour on the highway from my house!
We arrived at the huge parking lot at around 8:15 and got ready to shred. It was a powder day and still coming down pretty hard. The parking lot was about half full when we arrived and everyone looked pretty hyped to be there, includung us! I have only been visiting Akakan for the last couple of seasons, as I always used to opt for Suginohara over any of the other Myoko resorts. Now I know the resort better, I almost always opt for Akakan if I am making the journey over to Myoko to ride. The worm has turned! In fact, the review I wrote on my first visit to Akakan can be viewed here:
http://www.snowjapan.com/japan-ski-resort-reviews/detail/2049
We got to the top of the gondola by around 8:40, expecting to have to wait in line for the 'Lift 20' chair to start turning and take us up to the top. Not the case however, as the lift was already running and we got straight on it to get to the goods. Score!! Skiers left of that top lift is the gate served section of loose trees and all kinds of nice terrain features. We lapped this section for a good couple of hours until it was well and truely tracked out. 30cm of fresh on the ground in there I'd say. Fun while it lasted and ear to ear grins all round. Time to move on to the next nugget.
Just down from this area is the 'Lift 16', right on the boundary where Akakan meets the far inferior Akakaura Onsen resort. This lift serves some of the more gnarly terrain in the resort if you know where to look, and we could see that a fair few others had been in there enjoying it too. This area has it all: Bumps, tree rides, cliffs, pillows, hittable avi barriers, steep chutes..... The lines are pretty short but definitely fun! Of course it can be very sketchy in there so definitely not a place to go unless you know what you are doing.
We stopped for lunch in the main spot just down from the top gondola station. I think it is called 'Meipuru'. It was pretty busy in there and we were lucky to get a table. The food is cheaper than most places I'd say and not too bad really. No heaters by the tables to dry out your googles and stuff though.
It had been snowing so hard all morning and it was only coming down harder by the time we had finished lunch. We were confident that the morning lines would have reset with all the snow, so we went back to 'Lift 20' to go get more of what we rode in the morning. Pretty much empty in there and the tracks were all but gone! We lapped it again pretty much solidly until we left at 3:45. There was a good 20-30cm accumulation on my car by the time we were ready to leave.
Another good day at Akakan courtesy of the awesome folks here at SnowJapan. Thanks :-)
I'd never been to Akakura Kanko before, but thanks to a SJ giveaway I decided to give it a whirl with my fellow SJ Forums lurker, Neck.
Kanko was always somewhere I'd wanted to go after reading the entry for it in The World Snowboarding Guide. Their description made it sound epic, with pillow lines and steep trees... Yet, in all my +10yrs of riding in and around Nagano Prefecture, I'd never heard whisper of the place...
We rocked up a day or 2 after the last decent snowfall, and it was bright bluebird with a minimal queue for the gondola -good start.
Once near the top of the resort, we scoped out a little tree run parallel with a lift and dove in. On exiting, the ski-patrol were spotted and Neck had his lift pass torn -strike one apparently. Get another and you're off! That didn't bode well as we'd planned on exploring the off piste as much as possible.
We took the top lift up to try and scope out some more slackcountry where the ski-patrol wouldn't spot us, but low-and-behold, there was a 'Backcountry Access Gate'! Was not expecting that! Having all our backcountry gear on us (as always) we jumped in and followed the hundreds of tracks down. Wow. Some really fun terrain! Chutes, trees, pillows, drops, everything! Only problem was the lack of pow to enjoy them! That whole allocated 'backcountry' area is pretty large with lots of nice terrain, plus it conveniently spits you back out on the resort lower down, a few hundred meters from the lift. So hot-laps are a definite go here.
Late morning rolled on, and in our search for pow, we strapped the boards to our packs and hiked the ridge up from the 'Backcountry Access Gate'. The route is well established, and plenty of other folk had the same idea as us. It took around 40mins to reach the top ridge and we were greeted with a fantastic view of Mt. Myoko and the ancient crater surrounding it. From here we dropped in and had fantastic powder with well spaced trees, that met up much lower down with the designated 'backcountry' area.
Kanko also has a reasonable park area with 2 sets of jumps -by that I mean 2 lines of around 4~5 jumps each of varying size. Plus a box or 2...
Access was easy from the I.C. and I will definitely be returning on a pow day this coming season!
This review is for the last day of the season at Akakura and doesn't reflect on how it may be mid season.
I had a good day. It was May 6th and I was able to snowboard after staying the night at a wonderful hot spring hotel in neighboring Seki Onsen. The views of Mt. Myoko from both the bottom of the gondola and during the begging of the ride up were beautiful and made the trip worth it by themselves. Many people were walking around the bottom runs and enjoying the wonderful weather and location. This time of year only one lift which accesses two runs is open. This lift is accessed by a very long gondola with rather small cars. Being the end of the season I was able to have a whole car to my self, but if it had been mid season and packed I think the ride up my have been a little uncomfortable.
From the top of the gondola you ride down to the lift. From the top of the lift you are faced with the chose of right or left. I started with left which led to a straight forward run which had some spots without snow and others where there wouldn't be snow for long. The coverage on the side of the course was pretty good and also offered some small natural jumps. For my second run I went right. This course had much better coverage but the bottom had already been cut into moguls. I rode the top of the course and then cut into a small valley which many of the boarders were riding. It was a nice natural half pipe and beat the course for me. To avoid the moguls at the bottom of the course, I rode in the trees beside the run which was a nice challenge. The coverage wasn't perfect which forced me to jump a couple of bare spots, once again making it more of a challenge and therefore more interesting. I did hit a couple of dead ends but it definitely beat riding the moguled course.
I repeated this a couple of times before riding a large valley which I had been looking at from the lift all day. I was hesitant to go in because it shots you out below the lift but ended up going for it. This valley turned out to be the best riding I had all day. The top was a nice natural pipe followed by a steep drop and another natural pipe at the bottom. The coverage in this valley was also almost complete except for one little spot at the bottom. On my way back to the gondola I did notice that there were some do not enter signs in the trees above the valley but didn't see any where I dropped in from the top of the run which is accessed by turning left from the lift.
Overall I would say if you are in the Myoko area in May and want to do some riding that Akakura Kanko might be the spot for you. The top of the resort might also make a good place to start a hike.
This area of Japan is one of my favorites and really is nice any time of year. Well worth the trip for much more than just riding.
Akakura Kanko, Myoko. – April 5th, 2013.
Thanks Snow Japan for sending me these 2 tickets for anywhere in Myoko in your last giveaway of the 2013 season! Also, congratulations on the new site. Layout is great and easy to navigate.
So here is my review for Akakura Kanko in Myoko. I waited to use the tickets until April, so I could take my brother who was visiting from England. It was his first time visiting Japan and his first time snowboarding in almost 3 years.
Living in southern Nagano city, I almost always ride in Hakuba and Otari. I have done a fair few days in Suginohara over the last five seasons, plus a few days ‘snorkelling’ in Seki, but other than those two resorts I haven’t ridden much in Myoko at all. It was my first ever visit to Akakan, and I chose to go there as it was basically the only resort still operating on weekdays in April.
I took the day off from school on Friday, April 5th and drove from Nagano city to Myoko on the highway. A reasonable 850 yen with the ETC. Pulled up to Akakan mid-morning and it was already 15 degrees. Basically t-shirt weather, but opted for a shell over the t-shirt just to be safe.
Being greeted with blue skies and an almost empty car park was nice. Much nicer than being at school! As it was a weekday and the resort was on spring operations, there were only two lifts running. That was more than enough to provide us with plenty of giggles for the day. The gondola and the quad serving the park were our only options, so we lapped them from 11 am until around 3:45 pm, only stopping for a light lunch around 1 pm.
My first impressions of the place were good. The massive parking lot is right at the resort base area, so no need to walk for miles to get to the ticket window or gondola station. My brother needed to rent some boots, but the kind guy at the rental shop next to the ticket counter gave him some for half-day rates. A bargain at only 1000 yen! I exchanged my free passes at the counter for the Akakan paper lift tickets. The staff all seemed really friendly and keen to make small talk and hook us up. Maybe they were just happy we were there, as the base area was basically empty.
The gondola is a six-seater and was moving at full speed, as there was no wind. The quad was moving quickly too, and I love the ‘bubble’ cover to keep you cosy on windy days. It was hot and sunny so we didn’t need it though. I would say that in total, there were less than 30 people (including us) on the mountain all day. It was really empty and the guys running the lifts didn’t check our tickets once all day! I guess they are a bit more on it during peak season.
We did a couple of top to bottom cruisers on the gondola to get the legs in. Nice slushy spring conditions for the top two thirds of the course, but the last stretch was more like glue, so had to b-line it from the mid-run hotel to the base area to avoid unstrapping. Still good fun though.
Spent pretty much the rest of the day lapping the park quad. My brother isn’t much of a park rider, but he did well considering he hadn’t ridden in three years and was out there with one of my boards and some rental boots!
The park at Akakan is really good, and spring conditions with slushy landings make for the best park days. There is basically one long line through the park, consisting of small to mid-sized kickers, which were well shaped and well maintained. Towards the end of this line there were a few box and rail items, but nothing too full on. About half way down the park, before the rail section, you can veer left to finish the line with two bigger kickers. They seemed nice but the landings seemed a little short for their size. We didn’t ride them at all. I am not sure if the park layout is different during peak season, but I wouldn’t be riding it then anyway.
If you are into riding powder lines and tree lines then it looks like Akakan may have some nice terrain above the top chair during peak season. That chair wasn’t running so hard to tell for sure, but it looks like you can hike along a ridge curving around above the top chair. If I go back to Akakan next season I will check it out for sure. As with most of the resorts in Myoko though, almost everything seems to be south facing. Solar radiation would take it’s toll on these lines I’m sure.
We had lunch at the restaurant just below the top of the gondola. It was the only place open on the mountain and the food was cheap and pretty good. I got a sukiyaki type bowl for 850 yen. It was nice and we ate lunch out on the balcony terrace. Nice views of the mountains to the south and a perfect place to take in some rays. We spent a good 30 minutes at this restaurant and left very satisfied.
My overall impression of Akakan is that it is great if you are a park rider. We couldn’t really get a proper feel for the resort, as we basically rode the same two runs all day, but I would say the groomed runs would suit mainly beginner to intermediate riders and skiers. The lifts are modern and the staff friendly. I would recommend this resort due to its proximity to the highway exit and massive parking area alone. I would definitely consider going back next season, but would rather go during peak season with someone who knows the terrain to show me some of the side country and powder lines.
Thanks for the tickets Snow Japan. We had a great day!
Neck.
http://www.snowjapanforums.com/index.php/topic/22870-akakura-kanko-myoko-april-5th-2013/