This was my first ever trip to Japan and it's one of those dream destinations for snowboarding.

I know that it's a place a lot of you are going to be looking at and in this video I want to share my experience of snowboarding in Japan to let you know what you should expect and also so that you can figure out if you're at the right level to get the most from a snowboarding trip out to Japan.

So let's begin with the expectations.

It's often referred to as Japow and you book a Japan trip with the hopes of riding deep powder every day.

You want fresh snow as the norm and not a lucky chance.

So obviously the weather can never fully be predicted but in Japan they normally receive such heavy and consistent snowfall through the main winter months.

Months?

It's usually a good bet that you're going to end up scoring the goods.

Unfortunately for me my trip was no different.

This was my very first day on the snow and we had a nice thick coat of heavy snow overnight.

Not only that but it had been snowing so heavily for the past few weeks that the base had built up so much that the chairlifts were having to be dug out.

You'd be sat on the chair with your board literally dragging on the snow underneath.

And the great thing about having this deep base is it meant that any tree stumps, roots, riverbeds and basically anything you don't want to be riding into were well hidden under literally meters of snow.

And this meant that the trees were in perfect condition to be ridden all week.

And really tree riding is synonymous with snowboarding in Japan.

It varies somewhat at different latitudes but trees will basically stop growing the higher up the mountain you get.

And the generally lower altitude Japanese mountains and ski resorts compared to Europe means that there is no getting above the tree line.

The only open spaces are going to be on the pistes, on the groomed slopes where the trees have been cut down.

And if you want to ride off pistes that means you need to get into the trees.

So where most of the riding is often done above the tree line and especially in recent years where that snow line keeps creeping up, most of the best snow is also usually found above the trees.

So for example this year here in France I haven't been able to ride many of my favorite tree runs because the only precipitation that's come at those lower altitudes has unfortunately come as rain.

However cold temperatures in Japan allow for heavy snowfall right to the base of the resort and even when you're driving around at the lower altitudes you can see these huge snow banks towering over the tops of the cars.

It's a kind of classic image that I've seen for years in all the Japan segments of my favorite snowboarding videos.

So in short riding off piste in Japan means riding through the trees.

And one of the great things about riding trees is that even when snowing heavily and the visibility is really bad like as you can see right here, this next clip here was now taken just a few minutes later when I ducked into the trees and you can see how you are suddenly protected from that crazy weather and the high winds and honestly it's like a different world of calm in there.

You can still get fresh powder on the pistes or just the side of the pistes like right here but that snow is going to be the first to get tracked out.

Whereas in the you can be finding fresh snow all day and really on this trip that's exactly what we were doing.

And this was my experience at least and I have seen videos of crazy queues at ski lifts in Japan but not at all in the areas that I was riding.

We were far away from the crowds of somewhere like Niseko riding smaller lesser known resorts.

Not only that but we had experienced guides who knew where to take us to find the best snow and bear in mind that this was my first trip to Japan so I can only speak of this one experience but part of the reason that I went with mentors and I put some details for them down below was to take all the stress out of organizing my trip and let them take me to the best spots.

Normally I'm the one guiding people around my home resort here in France but to let their guides show me all their favorite spots was just awesome and of course you can go on your own and I'm sure you're still going to find some epic snow but having their guides out there really helped me just make the most of it and the bonus was getting to ride with an awesome crew of epic like-minded riders and so here we're going to take a look at Ashan and we're going to see what he's doing as we talk about what sort of level you need to be at to be able to ride through these trees here in Japan and as you can see him demonstrating very well you're going to need to be able to make rapid edge changes, open turns where you roll the board quickly from one edge to another without the need to always fully cut across the full line and close your turns.

Quick decision to change your path to navigate through the trees all whilst keeping enough speed so you don't get stuck in the powder and the trees can be super tight at times and more wide open at others and you're going to get steeper more technical pitches as well as longer more mellow sections.

In today's video and in fact in all my videos I've posted across this season I'm wearing the Outdoor Master Pulse goggles.

I really like that kind of old school look you get from a lens goggle and the peripheral vision you get on these is great and perfect for me when I'm navigating through these tight trees.

Today the sun's out a little bit brighter so I've got the pink lens in and it allows me to see really easily where I want to go but you'll notice in most of the other clips I've got the yellow lens in which is a little bit better when that cloud kind of settles in and it just helps bring out a little bit more contrast in the snow when it's difficult to see what's going on.

If you're interested in getting some of these goggles you can check out my link down below for a discount.

Outdoor Master are a sponsor of this channel and it's thanks to their support I'm able to keep putting out content like this.

Now let's get back to the video.

So I'm working on a tutorial right now from this footage and from clips I took in Japan for riding trees is going to be out soon but I'm well aware that it can be a difficult thing to whether you're going to be able to do and whether you're at the level for if it's something you've never done like what do you need to be able to do and how good do you need to be to be able to ride the trees in Japan.

I know that in North America and Canada it's going to be more common to ride in the trees but definitely in Europe as I mentioned it can be quite easy in many resorts to always ride above that tree line.

So how do you know if you're going to be ready?

Well outside of trying to visualize tight trees on an open powder field that you need to navigate around which isn't really a workable solution it can be a pretty difficult task to replicate the same conditions.

I'll try my best to outline some things you can probably practice and will have experience doing even if you ride somewhere that trees aren't an option.

So I think if you can still ride confidently and charge through those fully chopped up and tracked out powder fields hitting those patches those little squares of snow that haven't yet been touched and making your turns there then that's definitely going to be a good start and whilst the technique isn't the same if you've got the skills and quick footedness to navigate through bumps and moguls then that will likely put you in a good position for riding trees.

Basically even if your technique isn't the best so long as you feel like you have complete control over exactly where your board goes down the mountain then you'll probably be okay navigating the trees and look I don't want to put people off from going there and my intention isn't to be the gatekeeper of Japan's trees.

I mean it's literally something I've only done the once and if you want to go to Japan then you're going to have an awesome time whatever your level.

The place is awesome but I just wanted to state that if your goal is to ride the trees which for me was definitely a big part of the experience of snowboarding in Japan then you will need a certain level a certain ability to be able to do that.

Now we did have one morning where the snow stopped for enough time for there to be a groomed piece and man that was one of the grippiest slopes I've ever ridden.

No wonder that there's also a thriving carving culture in Japan.

No ice, no snow can in the snow, just smooth grippy corduroy all the way down.

But even on this day it was still back into the trees and the wind had loaded them up with more fresh snow and actually I never thought I'd say this but sometimes you don't want all that deep powder.

The firmer wind-blown snow allowed you to carry more speed in the mellow sections allowing for long cruisy runs down through the forest while still giving you that same floaty powder feeling you're looking for.

And look the reality is I had such an awesome time in Japan that I ended up viewing everything as a positive.

The snow was good every day whether it was wastely powder, a nice groomed slope or everything in between.

The experience is very different to riding in Europe.

The mountains are much smaller with less vertical so you have shorter runs and there's also less lifts on each mountain.

But we rode at a variety of resorts over the week and it never got boring.

The quality and the sheer amount of snow is unlike anything else that I've ever ridden and I had more powder turns in Japan in one week than I have here in France across the entire season.

And obviously I've kept this video purely about the experience directly related to snowboarding.

It goes without saying that the people, the culture, the food and everything else just makes the whole experience that much better.

Now just to be clear Mint Tours did offer me this trip for free but this is not a paid promotion and I'm not under any contractual obligation to say anything.

I will however go ahead and fully recommend them.

I had an awesome time with them and I hope to be doing more trips with them in the future that you guys can come and join me on.

Japan was an absolute dream destination for me and being on one of the Mint Tours trips just allowed that dream to really be fulfilled to the max.

So I want to thank them and thank their guides who are straight up legends in their own right.

I had a great time going back through all my footage from this trip and reliving good times.

And honestly I kept my camera in my pocket most of the time for this trip.

I wanted to have a break from always trying to produce content and everything you saw here in this video, this was really just a small percentage of all the powder that I got to So I'll be back soon with that video on riding trees and thank you as always for watching.