So today we finally got to go boarding.
Dean and I both woke up early, which gave us time to blog, before breakfast was served at 7.30. I knew that I would need a fairly good breakfast, as today we'd be teaching Paul and Zoe to ride. This would mean a lot of stopping, getting up and generally using a lot of energy for not much gain. I filled up on salad, rice, potato croquette, bacon, sausages, scrambled egg and a bread roll. That would keep me going until 10.30.
Everyone else had a good feed as well, but it was getting on to 8.30ish and I was wanting to get out as early as possible. After getting a discount 3 day ticket from our hotel, we grabbed our gear and headed off. After the snow of the previous night, and the continued flurries on the morning, the snow was powdery, even on the groomed runs. So after meeting up with Tim and Kerry, we headed up. T&K weren't too keen to hang around while we taught, so they headed off. Dean went with them for a lap down Conrad's training run, but he met us up again a little bit further down the run.
Teaching is hard, as you can spot what the other person is doing wrong, but you can't make their body move for them, so even telling them several times to really get on the edge, lift the toes or heels up etc, they were still catching edged and falling down. Females are harder to teach as well, because guys will just get up and keep going, whereas a girl will wait for 5 mins, which is bad, because the muscles cool down and your core temperature falls as well, meaning you have to use more energy to keep warm. After a lot of falls, Paul and Zoe finally made it down after about 1hour. It was now 10.15, which meant I had burnt a lot of energy already for not much gain. So beer time it was.
We got on the lift again, hoping to beat the previous time, but as we were getting off the lift, Zoe slipped on some ice that had melted on the landing and fell straight on her back. OUCH... this winded her, and was the beginning of the end. Dean decided to coach her, as Paul was picking it up quicker. Paul and I headed off, but Zoe kept stopping every time she fell, and despite trying to tough it out, had used up all her energy. By the end of the run, she could barely stand up, and she was done. She couldn't keep going, and Paul was a little sore, but decided to nurse her and call it a day. This left us with the rest of the day to hang around with Tim and Kerry, and with both of them being proficient boarders, after some lunch, we headed up to Terakoya to do our favourite run. It felt great to be able to go whooshing down the mountain as well., although I hadn't really done much non-stop boarding, so my foot work was a little sketchy.
As we were heading through the flat section between Terakoya and Higashidate, there was a whole heap of skiiers, doing their best to be pests. They were criss-crossing across the path, while I was trying to go straight and keep my speed, meaning I had to edge it sometimes, to miss them, meaning I lost a little. Just as I was getting onto a downslope, one cut straight across my path forcing me off the side of the run, and having to take a wide corner then losing more speed when I needed to keep it.
We kept hooking down, heading for Hoppo-Bundaira. I had a couple of wash-outs, but no big bails, and we all got down to Hotel Alpenburg and stopped for a break. After eating some cake, we caught the quad-lift to halfway up Nishidate, went down a bit then grabbed the hooded lift to the top. Kerry unfortunately had to stop for a pit-stop, so we went down, while Tim waited for him. It wasn't long before we all met up back down the bottom of the hooded lift. After catching it up again, we went down the small slope, then crossed the bridge towards Takamagahara. The bridge is quite steep, and I hate skating (pushing yourself along with one foot out of bindings) so I was trying to keep speed. Yep, you guessed it, another skiier cut infront, causing me to stack it at the bottom of the bridge. It wasn't anything bad, but it's tiresome pushing up a 45* slope, but it was only short, so getting to the top, I strapped in and was able to keep my speed all the way to the Mammoth quad.
Tim had spotted a line from the back side of Ichinose he wanted to try, but to do that, the easiest way would be to go down the green run that joins onto the usual Higashidate green run. We were hooking it this time, but I was trying to play in the trees more. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't, because I came out of one section onto a slightly flat section. If I had stayed on the path I wouldn't have noticed it, but I had lost all my speed and stopped, right at the wrong spot. I got going again, and met up with the others at the bottom of the gondola, but this was the fullest we'd ever seen it. It is a long weekend this weekend, so there are more people here than usual, but we just had to amble along til we got in the egg. After getting out, it was getting close to 3.40, so the guys hike the hill, while I just went around. I didn't have much remaining energy, so hiking would have been a bad idea, but the guys did and had fun cutting through some calf/thigh deep powder. It was getting on though, so I had to get them to hurry as the Terakoya lift closes at 4pm.
We caught that and did our favourite run again, this time the Gondola wasn't as packed, but we caught it to the top, and headed towards Ichinose Family, deciding to do the red run. I went to head into the trees, but some grooves had appeared on my path that I couldn't see until I was on top of them. I saw Dean coming my way and tried to signal him around, but he didn't get it, until he bailed as well.
By now it was getting to around 4.15, so my energy was nearly spent. We continued down the red run, and I was getting through it at a good speed. I came around a left hander and had to avoid someone that had bailed right at the wrong spot, I got around him and not 5 metres later a skier decides to get up and slide across my path. The stack was unavoidable, so even though I tried washing off as much speed as I could, I hit him pretty hard. Both of us tumbled further. My ankle, despite being inside my boot and binding twisted, and I was slow getting up. The skier looked a little dazed, and said his ribs were sore, although I had hit with enough force to break/bend his stock. In someways, I'm fortunate that I have double-jointed ankles, because I probably would have snapped a leg if I hadn't twisted it.
I gingerly got up and tried to board it off, and was going to head back to the hotel, when I decided to do one more run with the guys. Kerry had headed back to the hotel after have a couple of collisions during the day, while Tim and Dean came for one last red run. We did it pretty quickly, and although we were still playing in the trees, all of us we done. We parted ways with Tim and headed back towards the hotel.
We sat around for a while, as it was only 5pm, and Zoe and Paul were still sleeping. This gave me time to read, drink some scotch and unwind. It hurt taking my snowboard boot off, and it was providing a bit of bracing for my ankle. So I just stayed off my leg for a while.
For dinner, we decided to head to Kamoshka, the nepalese curry place. It's nice that they recognise us after a year away, and treat us like old acquaintences. Paul is no good with chili and although his mouth was burning, he still persisted with it. A good bit of protein is what we need and after getting back to the hotel we turning in for the nich.
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