On our way home ......

the Niseko 360 blog guys yesterday stated that since 22 December there had been 247 cms of snow. That s a lot of snow. And it looks like continue. But life awaits and we need to get back to the real world. So we started yesterday morning with breakfast out. We went to Odin. I pronounced it with a French accent but Paddy quickly told me I was wrong and it was in fact a Norse god - which makes way more sense.

This was the boys breakfast pancake:

We got dropped to Kutchan and caught the train which was a bit of fun. Not a sophisticated train station at all. And a 2 ca train!  we met a lovely Australian couple on the train who were on their honeymoon and were heading to a smaller resort further north. Chat chat - turns out he was a Joeys boy. Was a lawyer and is now a teacher.

these are great

not sure what this means

we arrived in Sapporo  - and it was snowing. I made the boys come out for a walk - and Patrick decided that he needed to use his Japanese as there aren't many English speakers. So he got himself into the famous (!) Sapporo clock tower as a student and at dinner he managed to order for all of us and they kept coming and asking him queries and he did that all perfectly (as far as we can work out as we got the food we wanted.). Tom is either a brother or a friend depending on what is easiest. They have had a fun time

This morning we have brekky in the hotel and then train to Chitose; plane to Tokyo and fly overnight. It has been a blast.

So the summary is that Paddy skiied 339.2km in the 2 weeks

 68.259 vert. m

 226 Lifts

 14 skiing days

 downhill dist: 339,2 km

Check out the skiing action ....

This is the footage from Paddy and Tom's lesson with Alex this morning. Top of the triple hooded - watch out for the powder levels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75idU2kT9AY

This is footage of Cam hiking the peak. Cam. Alex and Ludo being taken up with Katsu to do the peak. When they first start - Alex goes into a small crevass - he doesn't see it - he just drops though the snow - and falls over. Lucky it wasn't deep. Slightly scary. Sadly Cam ran out of memory up there as Paddy and i had been playing with the go pro:     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tETBE5n-m5k

Some footage for Michael - this is after lunch on the run down from the gondola. Not in new territory - everyone skis there - and check the untracked powder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZvPDhtJcX8&feature=youtu.be

exhausted boys waiting for cam

The Nac boys heading to the Gondola - the peak gate closes at 2 - so they had to get on the gondola; the triple and the pizza box ....to get to the gate

Avalanche packs with shovels, probes and beacons 

Epic

Epic. Awesome. Go the Pow. Wow
What a day. You always want your last day to be epic. You don't want to leave feeling like you missed something awesome - well we didn't.

We were at the gondola by 8 - and for those that know the gondola terminal station - you unload and walk out to a staircase of about 15 steel stairs. It can be not pretty for newbies - as you try and manage walking in ski boots down snowy stairs carrying skis, pole s etc. We have witnessed face plants. But no more - for today there are no stairs. It has been filled in with snow and you unload and walk off a rubber mat and ski away. That is how much snow there has been. Epic.

But first - yesterday afternoon. The boys - paddy and Tom and Cam, Alex and Ludo all had a ski and then the ski instructors went and had a shower and then turned up here for a beer - and we then went to dinner at Bang 2.  As foreshadowed it was fun.

The boys ordered a large beer - that turned out to be quite large. Paddy had a guava juice, Alex was driving and had a mango juice and I had a small beer.

cheers

Cam

Ludo

tom

Octopus

Deer and chicken wings 

Ludo

 The chef

Tom

So we ordered the usual selection of yakitori - chicken, pork, some tofu, some corn, some deer - and then the boys went a bit wilder - Chicken hearts; chicken skin etc. It was a fun night. I think we got a bit louder. There was then a trip to Seicomart for icecreams and then we played bananagrams; cheat; checkers; chess and watch ridiculous ski videos which seems to be what young ski instructors do in their spare time ...

Paddy doing a jump and being dissected on the laptop

Hanging out ...

Alex working on a move in chess - it was very serious

But back to today - words cant really describe how good the skiing was. Skiing where you cant see your skis. Where the snow is around your thighs as you push through trees  - I will load the youtube footage ... until then here are some snaps from around the village 

 

Yep - these are cars 

and we had dinner at NAC - where there is a full on climbing wall in the restaurant 

All in all fabulous

some you tube footage from the go pro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5KvwXtWoF0&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mz2oGc2XBc

http://youtu.be/dwQPc_n_wfs

Today is awesome Lessie day

Go Lessie - you are amazing and we are delighted and proud of your huge achievement!

But back to today - so woke up and in the last 24 hours 20cm of snow, added to 16 yesterday, 17 the day before etc etc etc. So that is a lot of snow. But the big news was that today was SUNNY and I had an 8.20am lesson with Ludo aka ludicrous, not really. It was a joyous thing as we were on probably the 3rd gondola out of the station and we started with Miharashi and then the black powder gate; up the 4, onto the hooded and the queue

for the pizza box was ridiculous because everyone decided to hike to the peak ....  so Ludo and i did the best run in Hirafu - which is a huge powder field off the side of Hano 3 which you get to through some trees and i wish i had the gopro as it was hysterical. We had such a good run that i think Ludo forgot he was teaching and just took off with some whooping - but was able to see me come down - so all good. We had 2 hours of splendid powder - did some great runs.  I had fun. i bought myself a very nice cafe latte and a piece of lemon cake to celebrate.

This is the dessert of choice - Paddy and Tom went down to Seico mart last night and bought these - wafer icecreams with chocolate in the middle.

and this would be Paddy with an ice monobrow ....

Ok - so these are like the white witch trees from Narnia at the top  of the mountain

No-one around - as they were all queuing to get onto the pizza box chair 

looking down to hano

Paddy and Tom racing to lunch up hill - because they wanted - pizza and pork cutlet in curry ....and not the "tower of beer" which costs about $50 and I don't know how many litres it has in it (someone had it at a table near ours - goodness knows how their skiing was after that)

and yep they have morning tea and then back up for dinner ....and icecream 

tower of beer ....

From Hano - looking at the main mountain - which everyone was hiking up to ski

waiting for the go pro to unload some footage - will upload that separately

Tonight we have Ludo, Alex, Cam and Tom and paddy going to dinner to Bang 2 - the sister restaurant to bang Bang. Should be fun. They have gone home to have  a shower - so I should be pleased that they won't smell. Amazingly by this afternoon the weather had come in - and you guessed it - it is snowing again ..view at 4pm out the window (that isn't a UFO - just the reflection of the very groovy kitchen light)

till i get the go pro footage .....