Arrived in Japan on Sunday and rushed to Immigration in order to pass through quickly and get my bags and get to the kokunai connection in the hour I’d been given. Even though I was the only foreign passport holder on my flight other than the Captain, there was a line at the single open “Foreign Passports” section from a different flight. For some reason, nobody had told these Chinese nationals about customs and immigration forms beforehand, because they hadn’t filled them out, or hadn’t filled them out completely, so the line moved gratingly slowly. When I finally got to the counter, I was in and out swiftly, and off to the baggage carousel in no time. My bags came out reasonably quickly – usually it’s “first in, last out”. Customs was fast and simple. The dude was impressed at my bringing a snowboard for some reason.
KIX was rather warm inside. It was supposedly -4C outside, but it was tropical inside. I was still in Hawaii street clothes, and I managed to break a sweat going from the downstairs kokusai arrivals to the second-floor kokunai check-in. I was ticketed all the way through, and my bags were tagged all the way through, so all I had to do was drop the bags at the counter. When I got to the gate, everyone was sitting in the heat in their heavy winter coats and jackets. I’ll never really get that about Japan… I put on my long underwear so I wouldn’t go hypothermic on arrival in Chitose, and I was suffering in that. I waited near the windows where the air conditioning blew down to keep the sweats down.
The flight up was uneventful save for someone in my general vicinity cranking farts of the dead throughout the 2-hours. The landing approach was in the opposite direction due to wind conditions. It was around -2C or so in Chitose. There had been some good snowfall from Friday afternoon through Sunday midday. Now at night, the sky was clear and the threat of further snowfall was gone. I made it through the JR train to Shin-Sapporo and the subway from there with the addition of only a fleece. It wasn’t that cold outside, but there was a moderate wind blowing, so the fleece alone was a little cold on the short walk home.
Monday morning was below zero, so I put my board together and packed my gear for a run to Sapporo Kokusai. It was a little late to make the early bus, so I took my time and headed out around 08:00 to make the 08:44 bus from Odori Nishi-1. Of course this puts me smack dab in peak work commuting time, so the subway cars were packed! I had to pull out a, “Sumimasen, norimasu!” just before the doors closed and jam myself, pack, and boardbag inside against the wall of salarymen and OL’s. On the way out the opposite doors, I found myself stuck as the doors had closed on the tail of my jacket. A swift tug freed me from the rubber lips of the doors, and I was heading out and up to the surface world. I stopped by 7-11 on the way to exit 24 for a nigiri and Aquarius, discovering that a gaijin with a backcountry pack and a snowboard bag is less obtrusive than loitering twenty-something girls in the magazine aisle.
The sun was rising between the buildings and a brisk wind was blowing. I couldn’t see the temperature on the display on the NHK building, but it was still below freezing. The bus arrived and I got on. There were a few young’uns in the back, but other than that was empty. Three seniors got on at Tokyu Inn, and three Aussies got on at Makomanai, but other than that, it was empty. The Aussies were on the loud side, having no sense of vocal awareness or feeling English-language impunity, talking freely about their recent dreams. Me being the “Secret Asian Man”, they were unaware that they were sitting one row behind another English-speaker. The loud convresation and the grinding of gears from a blown 1-to-2 synchro kept me from getting any sleep on the ride out. The scenery was less than encouraging. “8-summit mountain” was bare of snow, and sasa was sticking out unburied from the hillsides along the route. When I looked at the webcams at breakfast time, there was a haze on the top cam, and true to that, there was a light flurry falling when the bus arrived. I grabbed my bag and made for the secret locker room, checking the return bus schedule along the way.
After gearing up and getting my lift ticket, I headed up to the top, checking out the poach zones from the gondola. The under-gondola area was track-free. It looked like somene had ridden the mainline on Saturday, since the track was mostly filled in by subsequent snowfall. There were lots more ground features and little trees poking up than this time last season. The center bowl was still a vast field of saplings. This was going to be a mostly groomer day. I started with a warm-up down the easy farthest left run. The snow conditions, although groomed with a really thin new-fall cover, was very good. The borders of the groomers were boot-deep fluff. On the next run, I checked out my secret tree zone, but the lack of cover made it virtually impossible to access through the intervening wall of twiggy growth. The downhill course powdery margins were similarly unridable stick gardens. Throughout the day, I found a couple of ridably steep deep powder stashes, but not without getting stuck in knee-deep flats a couple of times. There were a couple of jumps off main run near the bottom at the edge of the cat track. The landing was unridden fluff being below some cordoned-off area where the ground surface was still exposed. The stream at the bottom below the shrine was running heavily, attesting to the level of melt. Around midday, the flurries tapered, and the clouds dissipated, allowing the sun to shine through. The already warm day became warmer for the few hours the sun was out, but became quickly cold as the sun dropped behind the mountain toward Kiroro, and the winds picked up.
I took a break and got a hot drink. The conditions weren’t ideal, so I didn’t want to burn out my legs before a potentially epic day. After I warmed-up and dried out, I went up for a last run then went inside to pack up. I hung out in the ski center watching the comings and goings of all the fashionable youth until bus time. I hit the restroom one last time for the ride back and went downstairs to see the brake lights on the bus going off and the bus pulling out! WTF! I had remembered the time wrong and came down as the bus left, not the half-hour early that I thought I was. Oh well. I went back upstairs and vegetated until the next bus an hour later. The ski center needs either TV or a fireplace to stare at. The 16:15 bus back had myself, another boarder, a Chinese dad and child, and one other person other than the driver and loadmaster girl. Not sure if it’s just because it was Monday, the time of year, the conditions, or if it’s an indication of a general economic trend.
I stopped by 7-11 for a beer on the way back home. A hot shower and and oden dinner were awaiting!
I pretty much dirtbagged the day, just eating the new Roctane Gu gel, Clif bar, and Clif Shot bloks I had brought with me. Let’s do a tally:
Subway = ￥200
Nigiri & aquarius = ￥230
RT bus + 1-day lift = ￥4,800
Coin locker = ￥300
Caffe Latte & Gatorade = ￥270
Subway = ￥200
500ml Sapporo Classic = ￥280
Total = ￥6,280
0 Responses to “Feet Dry – CTS”