After going to bed at 8.30, I woke early at 5.30, so after brushing my teeth, I took my laptop downstairs and waited for the others to wake up. As the sun started to rise, Mum joined me downstairs, and the view out the window looked good. There was light snow falling, and I checked out the cars in the carpark and there had been a couple of centimetres over night. This would at least fill in all the groomer tracks and make things more pleasant to ride. The others joined us close to breakfast time, and we headed down to the dining room for some food. Another fairly boring affair. I like being in Tokyo as far as food goes, because it gives you a lot more variety about what to eat, but at least you can help yourself at this place to what you want and don't. I grabbed some sausages and hashbrowns while they were still warm, as well as some potato salad, lettuce, bread rolls, rice and miso soup. After breakfast, we headed back up to the lounge area briefly, but with the snow falling heavier than before, we were rearing to to get out, especially as we taken yesterday off.
Before long we were suited up, downstairs and out the door. As our 3 day ticket ran out, we all had to head to the ticket office before starting. We quickly sorted that out, but as there were loads of ski schoolers taking the quad lift up towards the green and red runs, we decided to take the quad lift closest to Khuls, and have a "hopefully" easy run towardsd Terakoya. After a small spot of walking and skating, we were down the other side, and on the lift. The snow looked awesome. None of the hard packed bits of the last 2 days, and plenty of powder on and to the side of the runs. We took a couple of runs down Terakoya before decending on our favourite Terakoya to Higashi/Hoppo run. We were absolutely strapping it down, and both Dean and I had our cameras on the side of our head. I took a big bail with it on, but it's all good. (At least it will make for interesting watching).
We kept going on Hoppo, all the way to the cafe. It was now nearly 10.15 so I needed some energy. Unfortunately they weren't cooking anything just yet, so I had to survive on strawberry cake and beer. We then headed out to the Giant gondola. It's a little but slow, as far as lifts go, but we got to the top and readied ourselves for a run. I turned my camera on to record it, but for some reason, whenever I have it on, I seem to stack it. We shot down the run until we reached the first of the Nishidate lifts, then traversed and caught the hoody lift up to the top of Nishi. Dean and I wanted to catch the slalom run on camera, but Conrad wanted to take it easy, so we parted at the top and were going to meet back at the hoody lift. Dean and I overshot the turn off, so we continued to the end, before catching the first Nishidate lift up and then waiting at the hoodie lift for Conrad.. We ended up waiting for a while and found that Conrad had actually done the green run down to the hoodie lift, before heading up and doing the red run to the hoodie again.
By now it was approximatedly 11.00, so we headed down Nishi towards Takamagahara. After going over the bridge and jumping on the lift, we decided to do the lower green run to Higashi gondola again. As we got out of the lift, all of the sudden, the wind picked up something fierce, blowing snow straight up the olympic course and showering us in it while we were trying to strap up. I turned my camera on again and recorded the run, but after mucking around in the trees, and coming out at the olympic run cross over, my battery died. Damn, no more video. We stopped briefly at the bottom of the gondola before deciding to head back to Ichinose. A quick run down the green run, (avoiding falling ski schoolers where possible) we stopped at Rockies cafe. I decided to get a pork katsu, which came as a set with miso soup, rice, pickles, lotus root and salad. This filled me up well, but after lunch, I was going to teach Whitney again. After getting her stuff, we headed up the back of the hotel. She's getting better at braking, but as anyone who's snowboarded will tell you, the less braking you do, the less you burn up your muscles and less falling over. We did 2 runs, but with no stamina, it's a hard time. I decided to use Whitney's board as a toboggan and slide down the little path she had been learning on... I went flying into a snow bank, then when I had got back on the path, slid all the way to the carpark. We left the board outside the hotel, and I went back in to grab my board.
I met Dean and Conrad at the bottom of Ichinose, so we headed up again. By this time, a lot of the ski schoolers had gone home, and the weather wasn't as nice, with the wind blowing around. But we had the runs to ourselves, so we played around. We eventually headed back over to Terakoya and did our favourite run again. Dean was absolutely hooking it down Terakoya, so much so that I thought he'd washout... I was following close behind in his wake, but had to back off as the ground got a little sketchy. Still had plenty enough speed to get through the little flat section between the runs, and we headed down the path. To cut a long story short, there was plenty of trees and bails in powder banks, but I didn't care. It was great fun and we were having a ball. By the time we got to the Higashidate gondola, it was getting close to 4, so rather than risk getting stuck somewhere we couldn't get out of, we headed back to Ichinose. It was still fairly bare, but Dean wanted to get some footage of me and Conrad. It seems it's not just my camera... whenever theres a camera on, I seem to wash out/stack, even if I've done it multiple times before. Well we did a few runs, I went through the trees in one section and got stuck. I slowed down to much and got buried in a foot of powder, and used up all my reserves getting out. I probably should have known before hand that I was out of energy, but I definitely knew it afterwards...
Being the foolhardy person that I am, rather than calling it quits, I went out for one more run. It was the red run this time, and I stacked it quite a few times. I spotted a tree run I'd like to try.... I made the first part fine, and should have left it at that and got back to the run, but I pushed it through a section that hadn't been tracked before and I bounded over a few lumps and bumps before my board got air, and caught a tree.. Nothing too bad, but I was hurting my muscles due to my in ability to carry myself. I came down and kept going toward the end of the run, deciding to ride one last powder bank, one I'd done numerous times before and shouldn't have had any problems... Well I did... My board stuck in, I went flying and I hurt myself rolling over to get up. So I headed for the road back to the hotel with Conrad. I unstrapped outside Khuls and my muscles made it quite apparent that they didn't like the way I'd been treating them. I was still getting out of my boots by the time Dean got in (he'd gone for one more run) and limped my way up the steep flight of stairs from the locker/store/ramen level to the the annex building.
I grabbed what clothing I needed and headed for the onsen. I was the first/only one in there so I had free reign, before Dean showed up. It felt super hot, so I didn't stay in there long, despite my muscles needing to unwind a little more. Back out to the lounge to write this blog, before we headed downstairs for some ramen. I really like that this place has a ramen place downstairs, as if you want something cheap, filling and you don't feel like going out anywhere, you just have to walk downstairs. Back upstairs for a beer and blog, and that's pretty much how this night ends.
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