Backcountry Skiing trips – Hokkaido

I recently did the Freeride Camp with Sherpas Ride and it was amazing. First of all the staff is not only very competent but also highly motivated to provide a great experience on and off the mountain every single day. The provided equipment (Skis, Poles & avalanche equipment) was new and worked well. Breakfast was freshly made every day and the guys did a good job creating a relaxed and fun atmosphere throughout the trip. I\'ll definitely try to come back for another trip!

Toshi and his crew gave us a truly remarkable experience! From the food to the accommodations to the epic skiing: this trip was out of this world!

I had a great time with Wataru, very nice and experienced guide. He brought us not so far away in a quiet and beautiful area of Shirebitsu with tons of magical snow. If I could, I would go back tomorrow! Thanks again to your platform.

Amazing experience. Took 5hrs to summit. Cloudy and little wind made it easier. Skies opened up 100M from the top. We summited and then we skied fresh powder into the crater. Well worth it.

Toshi and his staff are great! Very knowledgeable of the local terrain. Definitely recommend bringing a group of people with similar abilities and objectives. If you end up in a mixed group they do their best, but they have to slow the pace to the least experienced people in the group. The accommodations at the pension were very comfortable and the staff was excellent as well. Food was fantastic, including several unique and authentic Japanese dishes.

We had a great trip to Rishiri! The snow gods were not on our side but Rishiri is a mountain of many slopes and aspects and thanks to a great guiding team we always managed to find good snow! Toshi ran a great operation with 3 other guides which meant we were split into two groups with a max of 9 per group and two guides. This allowed the group to be split even further on the day... Special thanks to Shohei and Kosukei - very professional guides!! Arigatou-gozaimashita!!

I recommend this trip for any backcountry skier who likes to ski Japan powder. Toshi has a great set up with snow mobiles for initial access and a large variety of steeper terrain for skinning up and skiing down. Can suit a range of wind directions and conditions. The accommodation is new and comfortable and the Japanese dinners and breakfasts are great if you like seafood. There is also an onsen there. Unfortunately we were there at a time when there was no new snow however this was compensated for with the magnificent views we had if Rishiri mountain and surrounding islands.

Should have extended each day by at least 1 run

I would like to give Naoki five stars out of five. He was just great: professional, safety first approach, helped us with our splitboards, found great terrain and was very friendly and kind during the hole day!

The \"Guided powder ski tour\" was amazing, also thanks to your brilliant and professional guide Gunther Winkel also a big thanks to Jun Horie for the skitouring equipment. On behalf Daniel and myself we want to thank you for a very professional guided powder ski tour, showing us Niseko in the best way of ski touring.

I can not rate Toshiya because he was not our guide. Our experience was marred by a void of communication prior to the trip. We never recieved email or other communication prior to our trip, despite frequent requests. Simple questions like, \"Do we need crampons?\" were unanswered. The day before our arrival, we called Toshiya (whos phone number was being withheld). He was unaware of what day we were visiting, he did not know how many days or how many people in our group.

Truly excellent guide, with unique knowledge of backcountry spots for freeride and touring. Extremely nice guy too.

My wife and myself had the wonderful opportunity to spend three days with Naomi Kawata as our backcountry country guide. First off Naoki is a very easy going person. wen felt at ease with him right away. also he has the right guide qualifications.Safety in the mountains was the number one priority. he is very knowledgeable about anything backcountry (example how to apply your skins when your knee deep in snow} Naoki was able to take us to a mountain where we three were the only people there it was an absolute blast! Naoki took us to a few local restaurants that were amazing. you had better know japanese in these places or have Naoki with you, that\'s how local they were. Well to sum it up three great days skiing with an excellent ,extremely versed guide. we will definitely get with Naoki next year. We highly recommend him to anyone looking for a good safe time. Ed &Iris

Great for experienced backcountry ski/board tourers. Daisuke looked after us very well. We experienced some of the local culture going to onsens and restaurants after a hard day on the snow. The yakitori stand at the end of the first day was a real treat.

Wow what a Tour! Jun guided us perfectly, we made it to the top of yotei. An Incredible experience!

It was a pleasure with the guides from the pow company. Matoko likes hiking so we did 3 days of backcountry. I think we will be going back to Japan!

Myself and my husband and brother had a fabulous day! We got great snow! Wataru showed us some great places to get the powder stashes! Unfortunately my skill level could not make the utmost of this awesome day but I enjoyed it so much anyway. If I can make it back to Hokkaido I will try my hardest to book with Wataru again.

We had a very nice time with our guids matoko and shino. We did not do the side country skiing at all but instead went completely into the back country for 3 days of amazing powder. I would definitely contact the powdercompany about guiding if I find myself in Japan again.

Jun Is An excellent and cheerful guide who will help you find the skiing you want what ever your level

Toshi and his team are fantastic - great guiding and accom, and Rishiri has some amazing terrain for backcountry ski/snowboarding.

Rishiri You Beauty! Toshiya is an amazing guide, a great character and also a very good host surrounded by a friendly team at Maruzen Pension. How special to have Toshiya sharing his local knowledge of Mount Rishiri, his \"back garden\" as he like to call it! A perfect playground for all powder enthusiasts, so many faces and ridges to use; make first lines in waist deep pow and ride all the way back down to sea level! I wish I had never left and I cannot wait to come back! Thank you Rishiri.

I skied with Kehoe Seki, who took my up Mt Iwaonupuri. He is among the most knowledgeable, helpful and friendly guides I\'ve skied with. I highly recommend.

Jun was an excellent guide! He took us to some fantastic tree skiing on Yotei and we got to do a few laps since the weather did not allow us to summit. We had a really great trip and would highly recommend Jun as a guide.

This a beautiful day and a half tour with views of the ocean behind you and unless it\'s a weekend you\'ll likely be the only people on the mountain. The first day didn\'t involve much skiing, there is a 3 hour hike then skins off and a nice gentle slope down to the hut. Unfortunately this had been tracked out by snowmobilers. So we didn\'t lap it and got to the hut at 2.30pm. AKI kept us entertained with stories of his incredible experiences from around the world. The second day, the two slopes that we lapped were really playful and not a track in sight! Would highly recommend AKI as a guide and hut is brilliant!

Daisuke was an awesome guide! We ran into some unstable snow, so we modified our original plan and found some great snow on a safer slope. Daisuke was super helpful skiing and also in helping us to figure out logistics for the rest of our trip. I would and will recommend Daisuke to everyone I know going skiing in Japan!

Outstanding. Daisuke is very knowledgeable and went above and beyond. Highly recommended. Regards, Kevin

Wataru is an enthusiastic, talented guide who was a pleasure to meet. Unfortunately the day we went up was one of the worst weather with howling winds and warm weather. However, he made the most of it and we still found deep, untracked powder. One thing that could be better is his rental services. The only boot he had of my size was faulty and could not tighten properly so I had to stop several times during the day to adjust them. I would have preferred if I could have rented boots elsewhere.

I have snowboarded at a lot of different resorts across the world and Japan has some of the best snow that I have ever ridden. There is so much of it! I also really enjoy the Japanese culture and food. The whole Japan snow experience is AMAZING. I have gone there twice before to Niseko, so this time I wanted to try something different. I loved visiting Northern Hokkaido and was glad that Naoki could bring us to local restaurants and also show us where to go for backcountry! His knowledge is amazing. I don\'t think we would have had such an authentic experience without him. We did a 4 day backcountry powder tour in February, 2017 and it didn’t snow very much the first few days but with Naoki\'s expertise, he was able to take us to locations where we found POWDER! ASAHIDAKE and SAPPORO KOKUSAI were AMAZING! Those 2 were my favorite by far, but i loved all 4 days. They were all different which I liked. Naoki also brought us to onsens after, which we all enjoyed very much! Naoki was THE BEST guide EVER! We laughed a lot together. He taught us Japanese and we taught him English. He was super knowledgeable about every single mountain we went to and could read the terrain so well. He could even tell us which areas to avoid and which sides had better snow. I always felt super safe under his supervision. The added surprise was Naoki taking us to eat local Japanese restaurants. We ate ORGANS for the first time. It was so fun and such a great experience. WE LOVE NAOKI! We want to do another guided tour in Japan with him. We consider him a friend now. Also he took pictures of us which we did not expect and they turned out to be AWESOME! I would love to go on a guided tour to some steeper areas like Hakuba. Maybe in 2 years we will meet Naoki again. He was super knowledgeable, fun, and safe! He is also a really good snowboarder. Our of 5, I would rate him a 6!!! =)  

(Travelled Feb 2017) Josef\'s colleagues Vojta, Cyril, Kuba and Thomas run a top notch guiding company. They led my group on an amazing 8 day trip in Hokkaido during the second half of February 2017. They prayed to the snow gods and we were rewarded with 6 feet (~150 CM) of light delicious JaPow over the 8 days, surfing snow all over the region. It was beyond epic. Great bunch of dudes, highly competent guides, I would ride with them any day! Highly recommend for anyone considering hitting up Japan or any of their other awesome trips.

No words can describe the amazing experience I had with Sherpasride! They are going above and beyond to find places with the best conditions every day and are providing a very professional guiding. The trip was an unforgettable experience which I definitely want to do again and I can highly recommend Sherpasride, you will enjoy the time with Sherpasride to the fullest! Thank you Vojta, Kuba,Cyril and Thomas for everything!!

What a blast! We had the most epic trip with the boys from sherpas ride. Vojta assembled a very good group with strong riders. We got blessed with the weather and found fresh powder lines every day. Vojta always made sure to keep us busy and entertained - no day like the previous one, new highlights every day!! It was a good mix of resort skiing and ski touring. On our off day we went swimming in the ocean followed by whiskey tasting tour. Even got to play around with a drone. Seriously, what more can you ask for? Definitely coming back for more. I 100% recommend this camp. If you want to have a great time in japan with easy going guides that ski hard and always find fresh powder stashes at a really decent price, look no further.

Those guys are amazing! 9 days of ski that I will never forgget! Hope to see you soon guys! Spanish kisses!

Even If snow conditions aren\'t the best ones in the season the guides will always tAke you for the fresh pow! ( Japow:) . Great 10 days of freeriding and enjoying japanese food,onsen and countryside of Hokkaidó.

We had an awesome freeride experience with sherpasride last year! Vojta, Tomas and Kuba are doing a great job. The camp is unique and with the best breakfast you can imagine thanks to Kuba. Therefore we came back to Japan shredding some powder with the guys again! It\'s not about business, it’s about passion!

Obviously after a trip like that it goes very well! It was a great trip, the group was great and the guides too !! Very competent and they knew their subject! I found the trip checking on the internet and discovered explore-share.com. I was looking for a freeride ski trip in Japan, that only ! We had heard so much about this famous snow … We choose to hire Sherpa guides for 2 reasons : It was the best price for 9 days of ride, and the stay included very little hiking. Knowing that we were looking for freeride and not ski touring, the choice was quickly made. In addition, all equipment was provided (skiing, safety equipment). It was the first time we made such a trip, and frankly speaking, to be repeated! Great snow. The only downside is that we missed some more steep ski runs. But we are not disappointed as we went there for the snow and it was excellent. The fact of having the guide is useful when you do not know the area, the resort. If I had to go back, I would go without a guide because there is no use for me. Once you know a little bit the area, it is impossible to get lost .. We simply followed the \'freeride doors\' that everyone takes. I would recommend this trip as it was a very good experience, well organized stay, competent guide, and top destination! No regrets!!

I went with two guide colleagues of Tomoki, Aki Kobayashi and Makoto Yamada, and they were awesome! I wish I could have done more trips with the guys! The two guided trips were awesome!  The visibility was not clear for Mt Yotei and we ended up going to a different mountain.  The guides on both trips were knowledge and fun guys to be in the backcountry with.  I would highly recommend using Powder Guide in the future.   Great memories and great times!  Thank you so much for helping to organize the trips, much appreciated :) 

We had an amazing experience on Rishiri, perfect snow, good weather and a guide who knows the island like his pocket. The very steep slopes and the overwhelming nature satisfied every wish we had.  We have been looking for a guided tour avoiding the normal tracks on Hokkaido and then saw the pictures of the floating mountain. And definitively the adventure included.  We went to the southern part of the island, as Toshi-san knew that there would be the best snow conditions. The first 5km we have been toed in by a snow mobile and then climbed up a several times, riding different gullies each time. Toshi-san is an amazing person, always happy, friendly and very welcoming. As said before, he knows every bit of the island and guided accordingly bringing us to breathtaking places. We all would and will totally recommend him to friends visiting Japan. The reality was much better than expectations! We had some concerns regarding the weather conditions and difficulty but got lucky with the weather and never felt that Toshi chose a route too difficult. Rishiri is a floating mountain! Steep like in the Swiss alps, but just one single mountain, which makes the it much more imposant. On the sunny day, we could see the Sibirian mainland. What are your top 3 memories during the trip ?  Riding very steep slopes in perfect snow, Toshi-san with his warm and welcoming attitude, and the travel to get there and back

I had a great day out with Wataru-San earlier this month (January 2017), we went to Sapporo-Kokusai and did some runs in really deep snow. Wataru enabled me to access terrain that I would not have been able to find without his knowledge and had I have known about him earlier, I would have stayed at his lodge and gone out with him for more than one day. The day was a very Japanese experience with the deep powder, traditional onsen and local dinner after the ski day. Although I had some of the equipment already, it\'s good that Wataru has all the equipment for hire, as not all the guides can do this.

L\'expérience du ski de randonnée à son paroxysme ! De la neige fraîche et légère jusque dans les narines! Quelle séjour inoubliable... Au delà de cette aventure sportive incroyable, on a vécu une vrai expérience japonaise. En dehors des circuits touristiques; à la découverte du Japon, avec les japonais, mangeant japonais matin midi et soir, bref vivant japonais! Avec notre guide Daisuke, un guide très compétant, skieur de renommée mondiale surnommé le japonais volant! Chaque jour des paysages différents plus sublimes les uns que les autres. Des montagnes, des volcans, des forêts.. le tout avec deux points communs: jamais personne et abondance de neige fraîche. Ne cherchez pas à imaginer ce que cela pourrait être, il faut le vivre pour le croire!!