Today was to be our last day snowboarding. I woke up at 6.00 so I headed downstairs to read build threads. As the sun started to rise, I looked out the window to show a new layer of snow on the cars outside. It was still snowing, though only lightly, but as the light increased, the snow got heavier. That was fine by me.
The others arrived before breakfast, so we watched some early morning TV. Finally, we got to see Quintet, a show we've seen on all of our previous visits. We then went downstairs for breakfast. I stuck to the sausages, buns, miso soup, chicken nuggets, and lettuce again (I didn't want to be ill on my last day of snowboarding). We headed back upstairs to find a lot of the older guests watching Carnation, a 15min drama series. I think it's about a bunch of young widows running a dress/tailor shop in a traditional village, but without being able to understand it, it makes it sort of hard. We didn't want to hang around today, so we got our gear on and headed downstairs.
With all the fresh snow that had fallen, we were keen to get over the back to Terakoya. A lot of the ski schoolers had left the previous afternoon, however there were still a lot that were signed on with Shiga Kogen Snow School, we thought it best ot avoid the green run for now. Conrad mustn't have heard the plan of catching the lift closest to the hotel, as after strapping on, he went to the far lift. Dean followed me, and after gesturing to Conrad that we'd meet him over the back. Dean and I headed for the top and skated around the back to Terakoya. We waited for a while, before Conrad eventually showed up. He had taken the short lift to the middle of the main Ichinose Family slope, before crossing to the lift that we took. It probably wasn't the quickest way (he could have just taken the other quad and skated around, but I guess he mustn't have felt like doing that). We were bound for Hasuike, as Dean and I had to get money out, so that we had enough for dinner and the bus back to Nagano. This required us to go from Terakoya, down the Higashidate green run, then down Hoppo-Bundaira, then up the Giant twin seater and do a turn off. Unfortunately, after this it requires a bit of walking, as the post office (where the ATM is) is about 300m from any sort of slope area. I think the Shiga Kogen Ropeway might have gone bust, as we haven't seen any ropeway carrages going at all this time. It would have made getting back to where we wanted to be a bit more scenic, but after pulling some money out, we headed back towards the bus station in Hasuike. Fortunately, just as we were getting there, a bus was starting to leave in the direction we wanted to go. We walked briskly to catch it, with me nearly going base over apex on some ice in the carpark. We decided rather than catching the bus all the way back to Ichinose, we'd get off at Hoppo Onsen, the first stop. This allowed us to get straight on the HIgashidate gondola and go for a green run (albeit back to the same gondola).
By now it was getting close to 11am, so we decided to head for an early lunch, So after getting of the gondola, we hooked around back toward Takamagahara Mammoth.We decided it would be pizza and beer again, as we didn't want to run out of energy on our last day. Dean and I shared a salami pizza, while he bought a bottle of Blueberry beer. Chris, you would have loved this, as although it was by Tamamura Honten brewery (the one that does all the Shiga Kogen beers), it was made using their homegrown hops and blueberries. It was very tasty. I'm not usually a dark beer person, and Dean doesn't like beers that have higher alcohol %, but even at 7%, and being a dark ale, it was very good. Not cheap though, it must have been a special reserve, as it was 2000Y for a 750ml bottle.
As we hadn't got any video fo Yakebitai-yama yet, after eating, we caught the single chair half way up Mammoth slope, then traversed through Tanne no Mori to Ichinose. I haven't really explored TnM like I was going to, but as a pass through area, it's hard. You're either toe side or heel side through the whole thing (depending on if you are regular or goofy), and by the time you get to Ichinose, your calves are burning. Straight past the bottom quad lift, and over the bridge towards Ichinose Diamond quad. We had previously gone up and over the back, but as this requires you to keep a lot of speed in order to make the flat sections, we went a different way that was faster. A lift up to the middle of a run, and we were heading down Yakebitai-yama. Really we had only come over here to do the ungroomed section, as for the most part Yakebitai can be a little boring, with little trees to play around in, and the terrain park not being built this year, it wasn't going to hold our attention for long. We got to the bottom, before catching Gondola No.1 to the top. This gondola seems to take ages, so we had an impromptu snowfight, with the snow stuck to our boards. We think they might have told us off, via the radio in the carriage, but without understanding stuff usually, let alone over a muffled radio, we ddidn't worry about it (actually, we had run out of snow to throw).
At the top, I started the camera up again, before we decended down towards the ungroomed section. With all the new snow fall over the last couple of days, when I stopped at the side of the run, Dean and Conrad tried to get me with some rooster tails. We sped down the ungroomed section, but decided we'd rather play around at Terakoya, so that's were we headed.
We made a couple of runs down the different paths at Terakoya, haveing a ball playing in the powder under the lifts, as well as in the trees at the side of the runs. There's some video of this as well, including Dean doing a 4 ft jump from one bank. He actually did it twice, once successfully, which only he caught on camera, and another where he went for a grab, made the landing, but couldn't make it stick. I seemed to be doing my best attempts at becoming a snowman, but when there's lots of fresh powder to play in, it makes it fun, rather than sore.
We decided to do another Terakoya to Higashi run. I know it probably gets stale hearing us do this, but it is a hell of a lot of fun. There were plenty of bails, washouts and such, all caught on camera, but it was getting on to 2.30, so we were starting to get low. We decided to have a drink at the restaurant at the top of the Higashidate-yama gondola station. They have a terrace here, where you can look out over the area, and take photos but with the wind blowing and a lot of cloud and snow, visibility wasn't the best. After grabbing a hot cocoa, we decided to head towards Ichinose. Conrad started off first, but I soon bombed past him. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm actually decent at holding speed (being a little heavy has it's advantages), so I made it all the way through to the top of the Ichinose lifts before I stopped and waited for the other 2. And waited, and waited. The fiends had gone back through Takamagahara and Tanne no Mori, as they didn't want to push. I decided to go down the green run, but took it easy. I love playing around in the trees, but will only do it when someone is with me, so if I have a big stack/hurt myself, I've at least got someone to help me. So I made it down the bottom and waited... And waited, before I get a message from Dean saying to meet him at the top of Ichinose. I ran to the lift (I had unstrapped and took a seat), so I was up the top of the run quickish, and Met Conrad up there. Apparently he had lost Dean as well, but I told him I was going to wait. It was getting rather chilly now, with a snowy wind blowing. Conrad didn't reel like waiting anymore so he headed down. Then Dean eventually made it up, we started off down the green run. There was a lot of playing about on the sides, but it was getting laters, so we tried not crashing. After catching the lift up again, Conrad caught up with us at the top, while we strapping in. We flew down the green run again, before Conrad broke his binding. I have video of him tobogganing down on his board (fortunately he had his leash attached), and it's hilarious, but that ended his afternoon. Dean and I left him and jumped on the next lift. It was now 4.15 with the lifts closing at 4.40pm. By the time we got to the top, both of us were thinking we had only this run left in us. We were tired and starting to make mistakes. On the run with Conrad, I had decent sized bail and whacked my head, and was lacking energy, so we started down the red run. We played a little in the powder and trees, but as we got to the end of the run, Dean headed for the lift again! It was now 4.30, and we were thinking the same thing again. We the amount of snow on the ground, it being our last day, and 10 mins before the lifts closed, it was time for our last, last run of the day (Sort of like Lockyer's farewell games...).
Once at the top we decided it was the green run with a lot of playing around. Around this tree, over that bank.. it didn't matter if we had to walk back up to the hotel, we were going to have as much fun as possible. I caught all this on camera, but as we slowed down near the ticket office, we knew our snowboarding leg had come to an end. It's bittersweet. I love snowboarding, and could just keep on doing it. But I had taken quite a few hits in the last couple of days, which have taken their toll on my body. I'm also looking forward to seeing Kyoto and our adventures in Tokyo.
Dean and I made our way back to the Villa, and just sat around for a while. My snowgear was a little moist from me doing my best Frosty the snow, so we sat around with them on the heater, drinking an Asahi lager that we hadn't tried before. After just mellowing out, we packed up our boards, bindings, boots, and other gear (we borrowed some hair driers to get them dry in a hurry. Given that it was 4.45ish when we finished boarding, and 6pm before we got upstairs, we must have been down there for a while.
We were all tired and had to do packing, so we went down to the Ramen place for dinner again. I grabbed some gyoza and karaage chicken, and while nice, the quality in Tokyo is better, especialy for the karaage. We headed upstairs to continue packing, and as there was only a third of a bottle of Bombay Sapphire left, we finished that off so we didn't have to lug it around with us. I finished doing some washing, so packed as much as I could in the suitcase, as I would only need one change of clothes for the night in Kyoto. We then watched a little television, before turning the lights out at about 9.40.
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