Saturday, March 12, 2016

Japan - Niseko, Day 3

I could get used to waking up to this outside the window every day.

Japan - Niseko

Japan - Niseko

But I definitely couldn't get used to having to suit up until you can barely move your joints because you're so padded, it's so crazy cold! Today it was -11 degrees up the mountain. Ridiculous. Although much to Andrews amusement I did manage to figure out how to completely seal my face with my beanie, glasses and neck tube.

Japan - Niseko

Today we started off on the family slope and did a few runs. Andrew was planning to book into a level 4 lesson but they weren't running today, so we changed our plans and decided to try the Boyo runs a few times, and get lunch at Boyoyo. Amy and Kyle stuck to the family slope while Andrew and I headed over. The Boyo slope is really fun and very different to the family slope. I think that the family slope is actually more pretty and picturesque, and I still find it really fun, but the Boyo slope gave us something different to try because it's a "bowl", which means it slopes up on either side of a fairly steep middle section. You can make it as fast or slow as you want by going up the sides of the bowl, but you have to have your whits about you because you're skiing in and out of pylons that hold up the overhead chair lift.

Lunch at Boyoso was great, much more intimate than yesterday's ref lunch. We had to hike up a little slope to get there and were surprised to find that it was actually packed out, but it was because skiers from further up black diamond runs were skiing down to Boyoso. There were only a few of us chumps hiking up the hill to get there.

Japan - Niseko

Japan - Niseko

Japan - Niseko

After a couple more runs down, we decided to take the gondola up, and take the beginner run back over to the family slope (which is the closest to our accommodation). The conditions were perfect, the visibility was amazing, but still it was fucking hard! Andrew had warned me a lot and described it to me so I could decide whether or not I felt like I could do it, and I figured I would just go really slowly and fumble my way down. It was actually so steep and scary with lots of fast people and intersections that could accidentally take you down a black diamond run and I never want to do it again. I was shaking the whole way down.

Japan - Niseko

I managed to make it pretty much back to the family run without falling (well, I sat down a couple of times but not proper falls), and then I proper fell just before the start of the family run. I went over a big lump and got a bit of air before my left ski got caught in the snow, came off, and I did a few tumbles down before I stopped. The fall itself was like falling onto a bed, but I twanged my already sore left hip flexor and it took me about 5 minutes to get the bloody ski back on. I managed to get back down but I could barely even snow plow because of my shot hip flexors, and man the bath back the apartment was heaven.

Japan - Niseko

Andrew has gone out night skiing on his own tonight, fingers crossed he comes back in one piece (edit: he's back in one piece!). We got a takeaway dinner from Seico mart again tonight and are just having a quiet one in. Only two more days left, I really want to make the most of it tomorrow and try some night skiing.


No comments: