Disaster Strikes - Sad Times

14/03/2011
So here is another instalment of the madness that is my life here in Niseko Japan. I am currently in a 5 star hotel called the Vale lying on a bed next to bec farrar (just chilling by the way) on my laptop just relaxing. She basically won a competition at the beginning of the season for coming up with the best acronym for VBG. I wont tell as its not ideal for public exposure but it was worthy of the victory. The prize was a night in the Vale hotel which I am currently reaping the benefit of along with her. Its nice to be in a luxiourious place for sure!!
As I lye here I think about how recently I have been wrestling with my mind about what to do. IT has been causing me to feel so uneasy and stressed and is really affecting my mood – however the mountain seems to be the form of escapism I need. Its incredible! Over the last few days I have been more and more content with the idea that “everything will work out” and I am going to let my time run its course and not worry so much. I need to enjoy the here and now I am in Japan and it deserves my happiness.
Currently Japan is in devestation due to the recent Easthquake and Tsunami, as well as this a volcano has erupted today and nuclear reactors are melting down. Disaster after disaster has left coastal towns in ruins, people are missing or dead and the aftermath is devastating. I was in the lounge eating my lunch as the quake hit and even tho it was on the south island of Honshu and I am in Hokkaido – the north Island I felt the tremors. I immediately checked the news only to find out the Tsunami and Earthquake had devastated the north eastern coast of Southern Japan. The following day was a powder day on a Saturday, these days are normally relished by locals and travellers on a weekend trip, however when I went out at 8am to join the lift line, instead of the 100 people you would see excited and waiting for the lift to open, there were about 20 people all deadly silent. I was snowboarding and no one was on the hill. In any other circumstance this would be great because I was getting fresh lines and no one was around, but it was lonely – it almost felt like the mountain was mourning it was soo sad.
In terms of my time here socially I havent been upto much – I havent been going out in the evenings much just relaxing and getting ready for the following day of riding. That has pretty much taken priority over anything else just because the riding has been nothing short of epic. We have had SOOO much snow! Mo was a very lucky boy when he got here because he got an incredible amount of powder days mornings and evenings. When snow is like that you have to ride, you feel obliged to therefore you find yourself riding in the morning working and then riding in the evening. The fatigue and exhaustion kicks in but its a good feeling.
The powder riding has been soo deep and epic – it makes you realise why you are here in Japan! The unfortunate thing is I think I am some sort of super hero in the pow and end up going way harder than I should I have had a couple of serious tree knocks and an incident with a cornice that could have seriously damaged me.
The first of the tree incidents was snowboarding down the gates. Recently as there has been lots of snow I have discovered the gates – these are roped off areas where there is an opening into the backcountry of Niseko – there are expensive consequences if you need to be rescued in these areas and you should be wearing backcountry avalanche gear to be safe – but we assume if patrol are opening these gates then it should be safe enough right?  Stupid really! Better to be safe than sorry! Basically out of gate 4 or 5 you can access some amazing fresh open snow terrain dropping into the hanazono area of Niseko! It is incredible. I was heading down a run on the gates going through amazing open trees and was snowboarding under a low lying tree branch and hit a bump just before the branch we elevated me up and i smashed my head on the thick branch hard enough to clothes line me to the floor – insane impact – so hard a mark was left on my helmet. I was lucky 1 I wasn’t elevated up to my eyes or face otherwise i would have seriously damaged myself! I was also thankful for my amazing helmet – had i not had that on I would have been knocked out cold and without Mo around me as we were riding I would have needed rescuing – it is so important to stay close to your friends when riding in those areas so straight after the incident i got up shook it off and looked for Mo – madness!
The second tree incident was in in the Super Ridge backside trees. It was fresh and fast and epic I was bouncing between powder tree turns going super fast, a turn bucked me too high and I couldn’t turn – I knew I was heading straight toward a tree full speed so just before I hit the tree I got into a recovery position on my board and smashed the hell out of my left hip/pelvis and bum i was down for a couple of mins screaming in pain, but it wore off and I ended up carry on riding. The pain was more bruising and soreness as opposed to any damage the next couple of days were sore sleeping and lying on my left bum cheek but its getting much better.
The cornice incident was stupid. I was riding with Mo on an epic pow day and we were lapping Gate 4 for some mad fresh open powder turns and on the laps I saw a friend from Demo rental shop called Tomas from France. We had always talked about riding together but never got round to it so we did a lap on Gate 4 – he made us traverse hard left right into the back country and before we knew it we didnt know where we were going – we decided to head back right and as we were traversing right without knowing it we were on top of a 25 ft cornice and were traversing lower and lower – Tomas and I went over the lip broke the top of the cornice and dropped 25 ft into powder – the first thing i did because i didnt realise what was happening was look up at the cornice and check to see if it was collapsing – luckily it didnt but I was so lucky. Mo followed up over the cornice with our guidance – only after did we realise how stupid that was! We could have been buried quite easily.
Mo has now left and had an epic time – I had a great time riding with him – such good memories shredding powder with him, watching him put in amazing turns and watching him progress with us was awesome. He is an amazing rider and I am eternally grateful for him introducing me to this sport! I find riding with him the collaborative learning and progression was amazing we both learnt tricks off each other, as well as new ones together. One more memorable run was playing horse – where you call a trick and both of you have to do it – we must have done about 20 tricks in a whole run exhausting but soo much fun! Amazing!
We managed to demo the Gentem sticks and they were incredible its like having a piece of art on ur feet! Amazing unfortunately it wasn’t a pow day but it was still pretty amazing – the boards epitomise the beauty of riding Japanese pow, we didnt have fresh snow but we took it through some soft chopped up deep snow and it just blasted through. I don’t think I was ready for it – it was soo lively! It was like a teenager about to get involved with a pornstar – just wasn’t ready to ride it – like I wasn’t ready to ride the Gentem – one day I feel like I will have done enough riding and achieved enough on my board to shred a gentem – amazing!
Another memorable riding day was with Kimmy today – it was raining in the morning and started snowing late morning. I met up with Kimmy for her 4 hr ride break at 12 and we had some amazing fresh wet heavy pow turns and she took my down runs I have never been down – its awesome to ride with people to learn new runs. But more importantly Kimmy is just awesome fun to ride with! We hit a cornice and it was the biggest she’d hit – I was so stoked to push her riding but at the same time keep it within her limits and progressive. I took her into the Kings Park for the first time this winter, and she killed it hit the first jump nose and tail slid the box and smashed up the flat down – she was super stoked as was I. Hit the 30ft and managed a front 3 indy and front 5! Was soo happy because its a big booter – landed clean with confidence too! Amazing! We hit the mini pipe and it was the first time I felt comfortable in the pipe getting air out of it! Amazing times!
Nothing really else to report – we had a end of season staff party however I was more interested in snowboarding the following day so I just ate the free food and left – it was fun – 80’s theme and I wore the most ridiculous outfit – pink velor track pants and a wifebeater – disgusting!
In the house a lot of people have moved out – with Mo leaving I had to vacate my room and am now living upstairs with Pablo – all good! Really enjoyed Mo’s company we had many good conversations about snowboarding – he described the personality traits I have that are reflected in my snowboarding include – power, determination, happiness and control – I couldn’t have put it better myself and it was 4 words which really helped me shape the way I should continue to ride! Gosh I love this sport its amazing!
Anyway I better get going – much love to all