Teton Bros. x People - Takayuki Hirano - Part 1

We walk in harmony with nature and create products and a future with colleagues who share our values.

Teton Bros. develops products in the field with professional colleagues active in the fields of Japan and around the world.
How do the many people who have come together under the name of "Teton" - the Teton Brothers - interact with nature and build their lives? We will weave together the chemical reaction between Teton Bros. and people.

Hinoemata is a small village in the southwest of Fukushima Prefecture's Aizu region, facing Gunma Prefecture. It's difficult to access, and especially sparsely populated in winter, but one man has cultivated a backcountry culture here. We spoke to snowboarder Takayuki Hirano, who moved to Hinoemata after getting married and has always valued harmony.

Hinoemata, where a unique culture lives on

-First, please tell us about Hinoemata.

Hinoemata is a really small village in the mountains, said to be the least densely populated village in Japan. Its resources are nature and tourism, and it has Oze as its major backbone.
Being located deep in the mountains, the area is blessed with an abundance of mountain produce, including wild vegetables and mushrooms, and has also developed a unique food culture. In the past, this area was closed off in the winter due to heavy snowfall, making it difficult for ingredients to be imported from other areas. As a result, Hinoemata has its own unique methods of preserving and cooking food, such as salting wild vegetables, which I found very appealing as a newcomer myself.

Every year, when the snow melts and spring arrives, I head to the nearby mountains to pick wild vegetables.

Another specialty of Hinoemata is sashimi soba.
This is a very unusual way of making soba noodles, using a unique technique in which one soba noodle is stretched, stacked, and cut without folding. Because it looks like cutting cloth, it is called "cutting soba noodles."

Cut soba is a local dish from Hinoemata, where soba noodles are stretched out without folding and then cut into multiple layers.

He learned how to make soba noodles from his grandmother-in-law, and now he continues to make soba noodles himself as a craftsman.

Hirano's sense of Hinoemata's potential

--What was the situation like in Hinoemata when you arrived?

I came to Hinoemata about 20 years ago, but at that time the Oze boom had ended and the number of tourists was declining significantly.

I think a lot of people of the baby boomer generation knew about Hinoemata thanks to Oze, but our generation, people under 40, aren't very familiar with Oze, and many people haven't even heard of the name Hinoemata. But I felt that the village of Hinoemata had a lot of potential and possibilities. I came to the village hoping to spread that message in my own way.

-Is that the appeal of the field?

There's the charm of the field, and the charm of the people who live there...there are so many that it's hard to even begin to list them all.

The villagers of Hinoemata are very shy, but once you open up and become friends with them, their friendliness is extraordinary. There are moments when the distance between people becomes very close. That made me very happy. If you talk to them, they'll talk a lot, but because they're shy, if you don't talk, the distance between you never changes. But once you get past that, you can really sense their humanity and hear about the village's way of thinking.

--By doing this repeatedly, you were able to connect with many different people.

In reality, I don't think I could have done anything on my own. I connected with people, and through those people, I connected with other people, and so on.
Each villager had their own area of expertise, and we learned a lot from them. Some people learned about mountains, others about soba noodles. This formed the basis of village life.

Minshuku Kadoya is also a base for daily life. It serves soba noodles at lunchtime (irregular holidays).

The unexplored backcountry of Oze

--Please tell us about your work in Hinoemata.

During the green season I work as a guide in Oze, but when the busy season comes and the number of tourists increases, the inn also gets busy and I can't go to Oze, so my main job is working at the inn and restaurant.

During the winter season, he runs backcountry tours with Raku (a guide company run by Hirano). First there is a tour for backcountry beginners, then there are backcountry tours for the next level, and as you level up, you can gradually venture into more serious places like Aizu-Komagatake and Hiuchigatake.

In the winter, he organizes tours mainly in local mountains, and also frequently goes into the mountains on his own with friends.

--When did you start Raku?

It was founded in 2008 by seven Hinoemata villagers, including myself. At the time, there weren't many Oze guides in Hinoemata, so we decided to start Raku. At the time, there were really only one or two Oze guides in Hinoemata. They were very knowledgeable about the plants of Oze, so I learned from them.

I then started guiding in the winter. While there were a fair number of visitors during the green season, there were no visitors at all in the winter, so I had a strong desire to work hard in the winter season from the start. After all, I am a snowboarder.

With the members of Raku. It was because of them that we were able to continue our winter activities.

-What year did you start working as a winter guide?

Raku's Cat Tour was first held in 2009, and we started accepting customers the following year in 2010. In fact, up until then, I had never been to Oze, which is now my main ski field.

I actually discovered I could ski here when I was clearing snow from a mountain hut. To clear the snow, I would go to the foot of Oze by snowmobile. That's when I thought, "Maybe I could ski here too." Hinoemata already had a CAT (snow vehicle), so I thought I could use that and went to negotiate directly with the village mayor.
That was the start of the tour.

--Were there not many people doing backcountry skiing here originally?

There weren't many people in Hinoemata. But as it's a heavy snow area, the people there have amazing skiing skills.
Although it's not backcountry, my father-in-law, who is a local, used to heli-ski. My wife also has experience with heli-skiing, and has skied down Aizu-Komagatake. However, it seems they had no idea about backcountry skiing, where you climb up and ski down by yourself.

Located inland, Hinoemata receives a lot of dry snow, making it a paradise for skiers and snowboarders alike.

I want the customers who come all the way here to have fun.

-Was it difficult to launch Raku and get it on track?

We had to get the word out, so we started by doing sales activities. We went around to snowboard shops all over the country and cold-called them and told them, "This is what we're doing."

Through grassroots activities, we were lucky enough to have customers who came to our cat tours become repeat visitors, and this number gradually increased. One person would bring two or three friends with them. Hinoemata and Raku itself were not very well known at the time, so I think that was a good thing. I think that's why people were interested.

--What do you think is the most appealing aspect of Raku and Hinoemata to visitors?

I think that because there are fewer people, there is less competition and a higher chance of skiing on a beautiful slope.
I also liked the somewhat rustic feel of Hinoemata itself. However, it's a place with such heavy snowfall, and it takes another two hours to get there by getting off the highway onto the local roads, so I don't think you'd go out of your way to come here unless you had a specific purpose.
We were thinking about how we could entertain the customers who had come all the way there as much as possible.

Every summer, Raku Festival is held at a local campground, attracting many Raku customers.

-Have you ever had any difficulties while continuing to work as Raku?

Actually, I can't really think of any difficulties. Other people say it must have been really tough, but it wasn't difficult at all.
However, when doing something new, I thought it would be difficult to get the villagers to understand. That's why I made a conscious effort to communicate with them as I went along. To help them understand, I wanted as many villagers as possible to come on the cat tour. I thought the quickest way to get them to understand was to have them see what we were doing.

Takayuki Hirano
Born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1978, he moved to Hinoemata Village and started the guide company "Raku," working as a guide in Oze during the green season and as a backcountry guide during the winter season. He is also the owner of the guesthouse and restaurant "Kadoya," and is a soba noodle chef who makes the village's local dish, "Saichi Soba."
As an ambassador for Teton Bros., he also tests products and provides feedback.

Back to blog