Sometime the weather here in Hokkaido fails to cooperate with our fishing schedule. Rain started early last Saturday as just a light drizzle, but quickly turned to a steady downpour. Although we were ready to push through the rain, to a degree, the small Bifue River’s flows quickly surged and basically kept us from any […]
First fishing trip of the year was a success. Not in terms of fish caught, for there was only one very small yamame which I successfully landed. But my casting was crisp, my equipment was well prepared, and my knots where tied smoothly and without incident. For me that’s a win. During this excursion I […]
I am a snowshoe junkie. Love it. Go about 3 times a week. And the thing about snowshoeing in Japan, in my humble opinion, is that it is underrepresented as an outdoor activity. That’s sad. Skiing gets all the love. But skiing has it’s own issues. It’s prohibitively expensive, often crowded, and honestly a bit […]
It came and then it went. The snow began falling pretty heavily last weekend. It looked like an early start to snowshoeing season. I planned out my winter routes, prepared my Tubbs Wilderness snowshoes, got my gaiters ready – very exciting! But just as it has been in the past, this snowfall was a short […]
Camping in Japan can be hit and miss. Although there might be opportunities for hardcore back country camping deep inside some national forests, most public lands don’t have decent, low-impact, camping areas. Instead, there are a multitude of privately run campgrounds each offering different amenities, check-in/out times, and rules (and being Japan, there are plenty […]
In the past year I have experimented with fly fishing via bicycle within the city limits of Sapporo. Slowly I began assembling the gear necessary to get me from apartment to stream as swiftly as possible. It has been a slow process, filled with trial and error.(See my previous post about what I started out […]
Here in Japan, a good headphone system is a must in order to deflect yourself from xenophobic adolescents who like to interrupt your walk with shouts of “Hello!”, sometimes from across the street. These are not necessarily friendly attempts at communication. Most of the time they are trying to illicit a reaction so their friends […]
When one of the most intense snowstorms in the last 50 years finally cleared out, I was itching to get back on trail. But I worried that 80+ centimeters of the unpacked goodstuff might make the going a bit rough. Just getting up onto the traihead to Asahiyama was gonna be a chore, but with […]
I love Hokkaido’s winter. When I strap on my Tubbs Wilderness snowshoes I feel a true sense of relief, like their 180 degree rotation bindings should be part of my natural gait. In fact, when I am not wearing them I feel downright naked, and slightly depressed. So I try to hit the snowshoeing trail […]
When 48 hours of near continuous snowfall dumped on Sapporo this past weekend, I had one thought on my mind – laying the first tracks in the 3-4 feet of unpacked powder. Even as I shoveled snow for nearly 5 total hours, I mentally planned my routes for the snowshoeing season that was suddenly upon […]