This was never a straight line.
Not from dropping out of university eleven years ago.
Not from tents to comfort.
Not from chaos to arrival.
This was winter in vans.
Winter in good employee housing.
Winter in bad employee housing.
One winter in a tent, and then a return to school.
Many, many pairs of tuned skis.
Chairlift laps.
Tram lines.
Classroom jokes that were half serious and half impossible.
The idea of a place lived quietly through all of that.
Spoken out loud just enough to keep it alive.
That dream made turns in six different countries.
It lived in conversations on chairlifts, in the tune shop late at night, and in moments where skiing felt like more than a hobby and less than a plan.
Wakaranai is where that long-moving idea found itself, not as a finish line, but as a place to keep skiing from.
Skiing Was Never About Chasing Conditions
We're not scared of storms.
We celebrate them.
And when it doesn't snow, we celebrate sliding anyway.
Skiing, for us, has never been about powder days alone. It's about showing up every day: snowing, not snowing, weird snow, bad snow, and finding style no matter what's in front of you.
It's not about waiting.
It's about patience.
Enjoying every day, not just the obvious ones.
We're not weekend warriors.
We're freaks every day of the week.
From Vans, Housing, and Whatever Worked
For a long time, winter meant making things work.
Living where you could.
Tuning skis wherever there was space.
Cooking together because that's what you did.
Not because it was romantic, but because it was real.
The idea of running a lodge existed alongside that reality for years. Something laughed about, doubted, and carried forward anyway.
Not as a business goal.
As a cultural one.
Why This Is a Rebellion
Ski culture has shifted.
Gear cycles are shorter.
Attention spans are thinner.
Virality often matters more than style.
Everything pushes toward the next thing.
This lodge is a quiet refusal of that direction.
It's anti-consumer.
Anti next year's skis.
Anti chasing relevance online.
Not because we're against progress, but because we believe ski culture survives through continuity, not constant replacement.
A Basecamp, Not a Stopover
Wakaranai is designed for 3 to 7 day stays because that's how winter actually works.
You don't learn a place overnight.
You don't find rhythm by passing through.
Located in Tomamu, Hokkaido, the lodge serves as a basecamp for exploring the surrounding terrain. From here, people tour and explore the Tomamu resort area, Minami-Furano, Furano, and Sahoro, not as destinations to collect, but as terrain to get to know.
This is a basecamp.
You leave from it.
You return to it.
You live in it.
Style Over Outcomes
Powder days are great.
But most of winter isn't a highlight reel, and that's the point.
Style shows up when conditions are average.
When snow is strange.
When nothing is perfect.
How you ski then matters more than how you ski when everything lines up.
That's the culture we care about.
Who This Place Is For
Wakaranai is for people who already understand.
Ski bums.
Freeriders.
Tourers.
People who don't panic when it doesn't snow for a week.
People who enjoy the fire as much as the descent.
People who appreciate space, quiet, and shared time.
It's for those who want to sink in, not pass through.
It's not for everyone.
And that's intentional.
Giving Back to the Culture That Built Us
Skiing shaped how we move through the world.
It taught us patience, attention, and care for place. It taught us how to live simply, how to share space, and how to enjoy the process, not just the result.
Running Wakaranai is our way of giving something back to that culture.
A place to hold it.
A place to live it.
A place where it doesn't have to be optimized away.
Slowing Down Was the Point
Slowing down isn't about doing less.
It's about doing things with intention.
With consistency.
With style.
Winter makes more sense when you stop trying to outrun it.
That's what Wakaranai is for.