Experience blending into the “ring of the earth” with Hokkaido’s dry powder Backcountry Guide Shohei Sasaki-CIRCLE GAME

While the great appeal of backcountry skiing in the great outdoors lies in the many dangers lurking in the snowy mountains, backcountry guides are experts who ensure safety in the snowy mountains while providing an indescribable skiing experience based on their extensive knowledge and experience. We take a closer look at the personalities and guiding of up-and-coming guides who have chosen to be professional guides as their profession and are slowly and steadily delving deeper into this world, step by step

Skiing for athletics

"I don't remember the first time I put on skis. It must have been shortly after I started elementary school. My father was a ski school teacher on weekends at Niyama Kogen Ski Resort, the same slopes where Olympian Akira Sasaki used to ski as a child. But my father never taught me how to ski; I started skiing when I was dropped off at a school run by my grandfather. So, until I was old enough to understand, I don't remember skiing being particularly fun."

"I did track and field for 13 years, from the third grade of elementary school until my third year of university. I was a sprinter in elementary and middle school, and in high school I focused on the 800m. I also skied to prepare for track and field (my best time was 1 minute 58 seconds). My winter track and field practice consisted of running around the school building or gymnasium. After that, I would carry my skis by myself almost every day and take the JR train to the ski resort. When I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, the ski school was abolished, so my father started skiing with me, and from then on I started to enjoy skiing. I also often skied with Yamanoi Zen, who now competes in technical competitions, and skiing with such good skiers made it more and more fun."

He had bought a season pass and was always going to ski, but his life took a complete turn when he was in high school, never putting on skis.
"I was so busy with athletics and studying that I never even thought about skiing."

The fresh snow taught me the joy of skiing

It wasn't until the winter he entered university that he finally put on skis again. And not out of his own volition, but as part of his classes.
"I wanted to be a physical education teacher, so I went to the Hokkaido University of Education (Asahikawa campus) to study health and physical education. In my first year of university, we had a skiing class, so I borrowed my father's skis and skied for class. It doesn't snow in my hometown in southern Hokkaido. I'd always skied on slopes that felt like hard ice, but when I tried skiing on soft snow at Nayoro Piyashiri Ski Resort, I had a blast.

The following year, I went skiing on my father's slope with some friends on the off-piste slopes at Kamui Ski Links. We were rolling around (laughs). From that day on, I was hooked on powder snow. I made friends to ski with, and I gradually became addicted to backcountry skiing."

For a student living in an apartment far from his parents' home, backcountry skiing equipment was out of reach

"I bought a Volkl ONE with a full rocker and a center 116 on Yahoo! Auctions. But I couldn't afford to buy touring bindings or climbing stickers. I bought a second-hand MSR snowshoe and climbed with my skis on my back. I had no problems and thought this was normal, so it was just fun. I had the stamina (laughs)."
　
The 800m middle distance is said to be a competition that balances cardiopulmonary function, muscle strength, and endurance. People who run middle distance are also good at mountain climbing. For Sasaki, who had been a serious middle distance runner until university, the mountains were a field where he could release his energy to his heart's content, and the only place where he could get completely exhausted. The first snow-capped mountain he climbed was Mount Asahi, Hokkaido's highest peak.

"We didn't have enough money to take the Asahidake Ropeway, so we climbed up the side of the course on snowshoes and skied down. Looking back, the difference in elevation was about 50m and it was a slope where you couldn't even make 10 turns, but it was a lot of fun. The University of Education has accommodation in the hot spring town, and if you write down your purpose as training, you can stay there for just a few hundred yen. My friends and I stayed there and started skiing in the morning. As young kids who didn't even know what a beacon was, all we had in our backpacks was a fleece and some Pocari Sweat. At first, I couldn't even read a topographical map, so I started thinking, ``Maybe I can ski here?'' and little by little I expanded my range of activities. That process was fun."

Quit teaching and become a guide!

Until the spring of his third year of university, he thought he would become a junior high school teacher and teach physical education to children until retirement age 60. However, a five-week teaching internship forced him to change course.

"After completing my teaching internship, I realized there was no way I could continue this job until I was 60. In junior high school, I had a teacher I didn't even like, and one of his words stuck in my head. 'Only about 10% of adults working in society are doing what they love.' I didn't think much of it at the time, but it's stuck with me ever since. He added, 'Of that 10%, only about 20-30% actually enjoy their work.' 'By the way, I'm a teacher, even though I say I don't enjoy it.' I thought, 'Who is this guy?' I decided it would be nice to live a life doing what I love, so I decided to become a backcountry guide.' It was around this

time that he was inspired by watching the DVD "Severe Winter: Rishiri: The Ultimate Ski Descent" by Hokkaido international mountain guide Daisuke Sasaki. After deciding to become a guide, he quit his club activities in his third year of university and started working multiple part-time jobs to save money.

"I did a variety of part-time jobs, including working as a clerk at the GAP, delivering pizzas and as a private tutor. Backcountry skiing equipment is expensive, and the qualification exams are also extremely expensive. First, I obtained a Level 1 avalanche worker license and took a first aid course."

Warrior training at Mount Tanigawa in Honshu

The troubled university student could no longer sit still and took drastic action. Before the start of winter in his third year of university, he contacted Minegishi Kenichi, a guide based in Gunma and Niigata.

"No one knows how to become a backcountry guide, and no one will teach you. So I decided to go and meet someone. I wanted to go somewhere other than Hokkaido. I thought Hakuba or Tanigawa looked cool, so I did a quick search online and Minegishi's 'KinTouN' came up at the top. I was also attracted by the emphasis on skiing, like a ski-specialist guide.

I emailed Minegishi, and he said he'd like to meet me if I had the time, and he took me on a guided tour of Tanigawa. My visit solidified my resolve, so I asked him, "I don't need any money, just let me study," and he agreed. The following year, in February of my senior year, I flew to Tanigawa the day after my graduation thesis presentation. That's why he didn't attend my graduation ceremony."

Minegishi Kenichi reminisces about the time Sasaki first arrived.
"I thought he was a low-energy, unassuming kid (laughs). But he was clear about his goal of becoming a guide, so after accepting him, the training went very smoothly. He's a very good skier, and he skis beautifully. He's low-energy, but seeing how he takes risks and takes the slopes he wants to ski, I could tell he had a burning passion inside."

And so, in the winter of his 22nd year, Sasaki was taken on by Minegishi as an apprentice guide.
"That year there was little snow, so I was touring either Tanigawa or Kagura. There was an Alaska tour in March, which I was taken on, and I literally used up all the money I had saved up in university. I looked at my bankbook and I only had about 30,000 yen (laughs). Then April started the Tateyama season. The KinTouN tour was held every weekend, and on the weekdays in between I would pitch a tent at Raichodai and ski alone.

It was also my first time camping in a tent, so I borrowed Minegishi's sleeping bag and pitched the Montbell Stellaridge Tent 2 for three weeks straight. I only stayed at Raicho-so on weekends when I was on tour, and ate a lot of food there, and even got leftover snacks from guests coming down the mountain (laughs). Minegishi would come back up on weekends and buy me food. If I went to the mountain lodge, I could eat udon or beef bowls, but I didn't even have enough money for that."

Still, without thinking about the consequences, he clung to Mt. Tateyama, climbing and skiing day after day. Part of what motivated him to do this was his desire to become a guide, but it was the nature of Mt. Tateyama that made him do it.

"I was moved by the white massif of Mt. Tateyama. I carefully skied down every single run on the visible side of the front. I was still too scared to go down the back side, though. Jun Nagai from JUNRINA said to me, 'If you don't have any money, you can't go back, can you?' He introduced me to a job at the Tateyama Center, which houses the Toyama Prefectural Police Mountain Patrol Station, and I worked there until mid-June. My duties included preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and pulling out and inserting bamboo poles for guideposts. It was fantastic: I was guaranteed to ski either the morning or afternoon, had three meals, and slept in a warm futon. I stayed at the Tateyama Center for three more seasons. I spent just under two months on Tateyama, from late April to mid-June.

That year, I was told to stay until summer, but my personality made it impossible for me to stay in one place, so I returned to Hokkaido. That year, through a senior colleague's introduction, I started working for Alpine Guide Nomad. Hokkaido summer mountain guides carry tens of kilograms of luggage in 100-liter backpacks, including tents, food, and fuel, and I was their porter. The following year, while climbing Mt. Tateyama, I studied for the guide qualification, took the exam in Tokyo, and returned to Hokkaido. That year, I finally started working as a guide.

My life-changing encounter with Mount Rishiri

It was during this winter of his nomadic training that he encountered Mount Rishiri, where he would be trained as a guide.

"There was a backcountry tour of Mount Rishiri, and although I wasn't required to, I said, 'I want to go,' so I tagged along. It turned out to be an incredible mountain. I had seen Daisuke's video of the Rishiri ski run, but it was beyond my imagination. The first thing that surprised me was the elevation difference. You drop 350-400m in one run. On the mountains in Hokkaido that are accessible on guided tours, you don't ski that long, maybe 150m at most, but here we skied twice that. And there are countless slopes like that. I thought, I want to learn here. I went home at the time, but after the season was over, I contacted Toshiya Watanabe of Rishiri Nature Guide Service."

And so, in December 2017, he began visiting Toshiya Watanabe. This season marks his eighth year since starting to visit Rishiri.
"Even now that I'm independent, I still guide for Toshiya for about three weeks in February and March. To be honest, I could definitely make more money doing tours myself. But I really love Rishiri, so guiding around Rishiri with Toshiya is fun and what I enjoy most. It's also a way of giving back to Toshiya, who raised me."

Sasaki asserts that there is no better place to train as a guide than Mount Rishiri.
"Not only does it snow a lot, but the wind is strong every day. You almost never use ski crampons in the dead of winter, but on Rishiri we use them a lot. And we ski on good snow. We try to give meaning to every action, from where we rest to the line we walk, and we always act in a way that allows us to answer immediately if someone asks us, 'Why did you do that?' If we miss even one of those things, things won't go well, so I think Rishiri is the perfect mountain for training as a guide."

While gaining such valuable experience, he occasionally traveled to Honshu and obtained his Stage I Ski Guide qualification in April 2018. In 2022, after obtaining his Stage II Ski Guide qualification, he launched the guide company CIRCLE GAME.

"70% of my guiding is done by Watanabe Toshiya. I don't have much to say, so my style is the complete opposite (laughs). As an apprentice guide, you often learn from one master, but I think I was blessed to have been able to watch so many different people guide. I don't think there is any other guide who has seen so many different people guide as I have.

Toshiya's Rishiri Nature Guide Service is run by two guides who are certified as Stage II Ski Guides. When I was training, I had the opportunity to go into the mountains with a variety of guides, including Toshiya, Kanemura Kosuke, Kano Kyoichi, and Takeishi Makoto. Being able to see so many different styles of guiding up close has been a great learning experience for me as a guide."

Now that he's independent, would his ideal future be to ski down Mount Rishiri on a CIRCLE GAME tour?

"I'd like to go to Rishiri solely with Toshiya's Rishiri Nature Guide Service. Rishiri is special, so I can't leave it out. On the other hand, I want to work on CIRCLE GAME in moderation, taking breaks and not cramming too much into my schedule. Not only is it physically demanding, but it also requires a lot of mental effort and stress compared to summer. I think the current time is just right."

There is no end to improving your guide skills

So, in January and February and March when he isn't going to Rishiri, he guides as the representative of CIRCLE GAME in search of good snow.
"I don't like crowds, so I choose places where there are as few people as possible. Even on major mountains, I go to minor routes where I only meet people at the entrance and exit. Going to places where there is no one is that much riskier, and not everyone can go, but one thing I think about is 'Let people ski in places where there are few people and no one is skiing.' I guess the areas I go to are about half and half, between the Sapporo area where I'm based and the Asahikawa area where I used to ski a lot."

His contrary nature, averse to doing things the same as others, is reflected in his clothing. He personally requested support from a distributor for his favorite Swedish brand, Klättermusen, which he has been buying since his student days on Yahoo! Auctions. Wearing what he loves and making a living doing what he loves, the guide also wants to cherish his own snowy mountains.

"When I was a university student and in my first or second years as a guide, I simply loved skiing. Skiing on powder felt amazing. But gradually, I lost my desire to ski on good snow, and recently I enjoy visiting mountain ranges I've never been to before, just looking at topographical maps. My ideal situation would be for these private mountain trips to lead to reconnaissance and exploration, leading to a career."

Sasaki laughs, thinking he's finally achieved his dream of becoming a ski guide during his third year of university. However, just like when he desperately set out for the Tanigawa Mountain Range in his early twenties, Sasaki still felt frustrated.

"I've qualified as a Stage II ski guide, I have customers, and many manufacturers who support me. My dream or goal when I decided to become a guide has come true. However, there is no end to improving your skills as a guide, so I'm worried about what to do next

I also want to get a mountaineering qualification in the future. I want to use crampons a lot and expand the range of places I can take customers. But now that my family is growing, I feel like I can't put my all into that. It's difficult. I'm quite frustrated."

Sasaki turned 32 this year. The intense experiences he accumulates every day have awakened his extraordinary physical strength, and he is inspired by his peers. His ambition to push himself to even greater heights is a natural progression. His youth allows him to fret over this. His potential for growth is as vast as the broad foothills of Rishiri

CIRCLE GAME guide service
official website: https://circlegame.site/Official
SNS: Instagram