Furano, Japan
Kitanominecho, 21−18
N/A
+81136556646
Just got home from an awesome experience with Whiteroom. If you are interested in off piste skiing and riding, a guide is a great way to go (there are so many small resorts around with many hidden gems of powder and the guides can find them). Our guide experience with Whiteroom was first rate, and made the experience of great conditions even better. We would recommend Whiteroom (and our guide Jaakko) again and again.
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We just finished our 5th year of guiding with Whiteroom in the Furano area. Guiding was excellent as usual, even this year when snow fall was considerably less than usual. We still had fresh powder every day! These guides know Hokkaido and work tirelessly to make sure you have a great time. They are also great at recommending restaurants, sites, etc. Can't say enough positives about our experiences.
Toured with Whiteroom tours 4 days in area around Furano. Guides were excellent and could find terrain suitable for skiers skill advanced to expert. Our snow was good — not great — and they were able to find soft conditions at different ski areas. If you are debating whether to use a guide, Japan is different from US. There is little patrol presence and obstacles are not marked and self rescue is expected. Information such as overnight snow totals is not readily available. Skiing off named runs is unpredictable and the guides can recommend where to find open areas. So, I would recommend having guides to make the experience better. Only criticism is that none of our guides spoke any Japanese. Perhaps if they are guiding in a foreign country then they could learn a few phrases. Not a big deal. Japan is friendly country and easy to navigate.
Just finished the Central Hokkaido tour with our guide Greg. As an on snow guide Greg’s knowledge of Furano and the surrounding mountains was more than impressive. Greg was also able to give us advice and recommendations for rest days and evenings not planned by the tour. This was our second time on a tour with Whiteroom and would have no hesitation recommending them again. POW POW HIGH FIVE
As reviews have said, Japan is very different from the US. Only groomed runs are monitored, any 'off piste' (in between groomers and backcountry) are not maintained, and self-rescue is expected. You'll definitely want a guide in Japan to find all those secret pow stashes. 2020 has seen Hokkaido suffer from having the least amount of snowfall in the last 2 decades. Even so, our guide Greg was able to find a bunch of fresh pow lines for us to ride. Without a guide, this would be next to impossible. Greg also gave us recommendations on where to eat, and things to do on our rest day. He also came by at night and drove us to different restaurants for dinner (not included with whiteroom). This was well beyond what was publicized on their website. Though I wonder if this was also because he had a group of 7 snowboarders, when normally groups are skewed to more skiers. Either way, this was a great tour in a relatively poor snow season. I would definitely sign up with them again.
This was my first experience with a guide. And I was not disappointed! Worth every penny and so well organized!!
I did one of the February Central Hokkaido tour with Greg and Trevor as guides. From the 1st contact to the end it was well organised. Yuko did all our bookings including flights, transfers and extra accommodations without any problems even though we had to postpone our tour by 2 weeks at a fairly late notice. (Other members of Whiteroom sorted that issue without a problem). The actual tour was great, Greg knows the mountains like no others and could find us fresh powder at every run, we travelled to all the mountains surrounding Furano in the comfortable minibus. The accommodation at North country inn was comfortable, free wifi, a warm drying room and a small onsen added to the comfort; the breakfast was also first class. But overall, the guides were very good ; giving good advice on and off the mountain. I would definitely do this tour again.
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