Tuesday in Niseko with 20+cm of fresh snow

Guest Blogger Liv:

  This was taken after 5 minutes waiting for the other guys - how much snow is there - it is crazy

Back to the slopes today.
Every body is skiing really well, and it was great to have Cam back with us after his back country adventures. He took Jem, Charlie and I on a little private lesson for an hour or two each, correcting posture, explaining turns and taking us through some great terrain. He was a fabulous teacher.

In the trees

Kit Kat and jelly baby break

 We were all a bit pooped  by midday, so we headed in for some curry and steamed pork buns. ( And a Kit-Kat )

Stack of the day (/year?) goes to Jeremy. We had a go slowly on the terrain park. most of us gently gliding over the smaller hills and jumps. Daredevil Jem went head on, top speed up the biggest jump in the park. leaning back with his skis in the air, he landed like a cat. A drunk, dead cat. Splat.  (don't worry, he's alright.)

Most of us hopped on a bus at 3;00. cold, tired but very smiley. Cam and Paddy opted to stay out on the slopes, and they came home a few hours later, freezing, knackered and grinning.

As Mum says, today was Fan-Bloody-Tastic. (Sorry Bebby xxx)






So this is the pizza box chair. Once we got to the top of the hooded Hanazono no 3 - the sun came out and I (meg) egged Rob's kids on to ride the single seater no restraint pizza box chair to the highest point of the mountain. Liv (post lesson from Cam and feeling very out there) skied down and straight on, then Jem, Rob and  I did as well. Gorgeous with a bit of sun. Basically it is a bit of wood the size of a pizza box and a metal pole that you hold onto - and up you go ...






This is the view of the top of the mountain - 20cm ++ of new snow over night and no one to be seen - as Liv says fan - bloody - tastic!





For those hoping for the return of some pooches - here they are. These are however sensible Hokkaido dogs. No silly kimonos for them. They are in sturdy coats or fur.

The grown ups went out and had mulled wine and in Lucy's case a hot cherry beer this afternoon before dinner -

We had diner with the Becks again at Bang bang and it was delicious. Menu below.

Tomorrow Cam has persuaded Paddy to go back country sking and the Becks have kindly agreed that Paddy can accompany them and the guide - so  yet another visit to Inski for wider powder skis for Paddy - that he is very pleased with. Check the hole on the toe of the ski - you get a great noodle of powder stream through this - watch for it on Cam's movie tomorrow night.

 and finally a bit of footage of Paddy in the trees today

and  the other guys skiing down the mountain

Cam's go pro footage from today's back country sking

Paddy skiing at the end of the day:  http://youtu.be/Kn3GxRSr8SE

cam:
for the last 2 days I've been out with Adam; a guide from Shinsetsu mountain guides, yesterday as we told you Sam, Stuart and Nicole Beck along with myself and Adam went to Rusutsu resort just around the other side of Yotei and renowned for being among some of the best powder deposits in the world, and it lived up to its name, it was probably the best day of skiing I've ever had. today however we stayed in Niseko, equipped with our tracking beacons and packs (with shovels and probes) in case of an avalanche. with the lines mysteriously short we immediately hit the deep powder, going out through the gates and attacking the untouched powder of out of bounds Niseko choosing and creating our own lines. my favourite run of the day was probably waterfall which is out of gate 9 which is featured in 2 of the videos below.

one of our first runs

first run on waterfall, following sam

second run on waterfall, following Nicole and Sam

testing my gopro on my pole, in Hanazono; Niseko (couldn't embedd this one so here is the link)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM9ublednfg

Ski day 2

Well for those that say that they won't ski in Niseko because there is no sun - there is!!  There is also more snow than I have seen here before.

Cam set off early again with a guide for the day for some out of bounds skiing. They wore backpacks with shovel, a probe and  wore a tracker to deal with avalanches. I just closed my eyes and ears and wished him luck. I know that Stuart Beck would have dug him out for me. The guide apparently had some funny descriptions for pole planting: imagine you are grabbing a beer off the bar and the barkeeper keeps pulling it away.

Anyway below are the rest of us enjoying a bit of skiing between the trees.

We had lunch at Boyso - on the mountain - very Japanese - this is the little guys ordering another steamed pork bun, I think they had 3 each.

We had a fairly hilarious moment off the top of the hooded King triple - where Paddy led us through some great powder. Olivia didn't quite have a Kate F moment - but got close to landing in a tree. She has however won stack of the day by face plant sliding her whole body face down a 5 mtre drop. And she smiled at the end - go LIV!!

Paddy has been fantastic over the last couple of days - he has made steps - and been a great leader and helper on the slopes. he and I did a black run on the way home. He asked me to lead and then told me he would as I was too slow!!

This is our house - it is 3 stories and really fantastic. Just 50 metres down from Seico mart and they run a ski valet service - so our skis are at the gondola. Very easy.
This is us skiing through some trees. Tomorrow is another ski day!

bit of detail for the keen skier's

Bit more detail about the BEST DAY SKIING EVER for those who love the snow detail. Cam and I walked up to the Becks at 7.45 and they got picked up at 8. The fellow is ex Thredbo Ski school and took one look at Cam's skis and decided they weren't fat enough - so a quick trip to Inski and they headed of to Rusutsu on the other side of Yotei. Rusustu has great skiing and one crazy hotel built in the economic bubble (acc to cam) and based on Disneyland. It has a rollercoaster and a carousel. After a long day skiing the boys rewarded themselves with a carousel ride.
The deal was they skied powder and lots of it. The video was cam's second run . By the end of the day they were skiing in powder over their thighs and the snow was going over their heads ....eek. He was very pumped. When asked to describe his best run - he said they were all good. All waist deep.

Today they are going out backcountry in Niseko with the full kit of beacons, avalanche detectors etc etc.

Paddy's boots are some super high performance boot that was worn by Paul (owner of Inski) last year. Great boots but you need a personal fitter to get them on.

Interesting fact: post Fukushima and the closure of many nuclear plants electricity is rationed and in order for the resort to be able to have night skiing the electricity supply is rationed and so during the day the electricity supply for the heating cuts out every 15 minutes.

Today was ...

Cameron: Today was the BEST DAY OF SKIING EVER

http://youtu.be/_VuAnjMRdjE

Skiing!!

We woke to a snowy day. We started as all good skiers should with  a good breakfast with ..

we took a while to get ready (see below) and cam went off with a private guide and the Becks (see below) so the rest of us made it to the busstop ie stepped out our door and stood waiting for the bus. And yes it was snowing or more appropriately pouring out of the sky. Luckily we fitted on the bus as we had so many clothes on it was questionable whether we would be able to sit on the little seats.
the view down our street

We were very lucky and scored the special 50 anniversary Lucky Golden Gondola - and a Japanese bloke jumped in to get some of our luck (PS we also went up with a fellow who knew Harrow as he skiied in the NZ 2010 heli- skiing comp)

 the inside of the Gondola including the seats was painted gold

We had fun

 Paddy and Jem and Charlie

 Liv carving it up

Just to show the size of the snow drift on the road home ...

 oh - where are our feet?

We came home and had hot showers - we have one room that is like an onsen setup - 2 little stools etc. The boys used it and according to Liv it was the longest shower they have ever had!

Guest Blogger Paddy:
The day started off shakily with me not able to fit my feet into my boots so mum and I went up to Inski and it turns out that you have to put them on a special way after that was sorted out we caught a bus to the bottom of the gondola.We did 2 runs on that to get our ski legs on. we then decided to head over to Hanazono. This turned out to be our downfall with extremely cold winds hammering us. so we sped down to the village and loaded up on balclavas and neck warmers with this on we then had a great afternoon.

Totaro had a great time in our house!


Tonight we are off to dinner with the Becks - tomorrow is another day of skiing .....

The riddle of the accommodation ....

So we have arrived in Niseko ...

there seems to be heaps of snow and this is the view of Mt Yotei taken by Lucy from her bedroom.

But before we start on that a couple of things: first Paddy did eat the mystery food. One guess was a sea creature - wrong. Then Cam has heavily dissed my spelling and use of the word gorgeous. So it was a Cameron's "insistence" that we ate the mystery food - and I am happy to use a different word to gorgeous. In my defence, I was sitting on a tatami mat with a hot water bottle and my parka on as it was sooo cold. So I didn't do a whole lot of editing.

So to the Kamakura accommodation. The last couple f days have been public holidays - and accommodation was really tight . So I picked the little guest house called kamejikan which has one of the cutest websites and a very nice fellow to speak to on the phone and a 1 star michelin restaurant around the corner (closed - of course). So when he rang and said that he could only take 5 of us but that his friend would take the other 3 I took it up. Kamejikan was pretty good - but for the fact that when we arrived the room that was supposed to sleep 5 already had a Korean girl in it. So Rob and the boys were in a very small room with an unknown girl who Rob said they only saw once - they think she was a bit put off. Lucy, liv and I were at the other place - which was a lot more doss house - albeit v Japanese. There were just lots of bodies everywhere. We had a lovely freezing room with rice paper walls. And behind every rice paper wall was a giggling chatting person!!

As we arrived in Kamakura I kept stepping over these signs on the footpath:

 and then lots of telephone posts recording seal levels

So given I was there with Robert, and thankgod Ron wasn't there, Rob and I did talk about how much time you would have, what you would grab so you didn't freeze to death, etc. I felt I couldn't post til we had successfully left! Pretty sobering though. The girls were at 4.8m and the boys at 3.5m.

Liv sleeping on the tatami mats - in her onesie and her new toe socks ...

Outside Minimichi (aka Japanese Doss house) - PS - when we asked about the showers we were told that in Japanese guest houses they don't supply towels. Lucy and I had a hilarious visit to a 711 working out what we could use as a towel. Very funny really. Rob hired towels but had no hot water. The little boys were freezing after their ice bath. The captions were hell, liquid ice, ...

Waiting for the bus at Kamejikan ...

At Minimichi when we woke up our room was landlocked with the bodies that had been having noisy fun and keeping us awake - so we didn't get too much sleep as the train trip shows ...

PS - for those wanting to know who Totaro is - here it is ....

and the promised kingfisher

We have hired gear and we are ready to go - there is heaps of snow. Tomorrow will be all white snow, blue sky and smiling faces (we hope).