I’m in Sapporo after a painfully long flight and long bus ride. To add Sendai to their list of destinations, Hawaiian puts them in as a stopover on the 441/442 Shin-Chitose flight. That means 12-hours in the packed-out seat of one of their oldest 767’s instead of 9. It’s not unlike a OGG stop on a ITO flight from HNL, but imagine your frustration if every time you had to go to HNL from OGG, you had to go all the way to ITO! I guess they are banking on capturing the Tohoku market with this destination, though maybe only a quarter to third of the nearly full flight got off at Sendai, and maybe 20-30 new passengers got on. A good part of the ramp time was security coming on board and inspecting the plane, and a brief cleaning on the open seats that would be reused: I think the actual flight from Sendai to CTS was 30 to 40-minutes. Considering the past experiences I’ve had on Hawaiian, this aircraft (N588HA) was dirty and run-down. Considering it was cold at the gate, they had all night and morning to clean it properly, so it’s the Hawaii cleaning contractor to blame. Continue reading ‘Shimari-yuki’
Archive for the 'Snow' Category
Page 3 of 14
Over a week of calm days with temperature inversion has made Salt Lake City a soup of smog to rival anything I’ve seen elsewhere. At least going up the mountain gets out of the murk. But also means clear warm weather up top. Considering it hasn’t snowed for over a week, the riding was not bad, we’ve been in much worse. We’ve only gone riding every other day though.
We’ve arrived uneventfully. Security at hnl was fast, everything on time. Hispanic IHOP breakfast. Checked out a few shopping targets. Lunch at In N Out. Checked into hotel which looks pretty decent, although its right next to the train tracks.
OK, that forecast cold front has finally reached us. When we dropped Dave off in Kaneohe early evening the system was just reaching there. Its been a few hours since and Hawaii Kai was dry. Then about half an hour ago there was some thunder and lightning. I heard the rain starting, big fat drops. The temperature dropped noticeably. Then I heard the tone of some of the drops outside were different. Definitely more solid plinks on the roof and the cars in the driveway. Is that hail?! I went outside with a flashlight but I guess it was too small to survive long enough to find any bits of ice. Now I really want to go get some ice cream!
yup, never fails, the snow is coming down as we sit on the bus bound for airport. We decided it was too much to try and squeeze in a last day of riding and getting on the airplane all stinky.
The end is nigh, unless the incoming equipment for my flight tomorrow gets rerouted due to weather conditions. Supposedly the near-typhoon level winds are supposed to subside a little tomorrow, but you never know. Time to drink my Silk Yebisu and take the bindings off my board as the wind roars around the building, and the doors and windows breathe in and out like something out of a horror movie. I swear the winds in town today are at least 150% as strong as the wind that shut down Kokusai yesterday. I literally got blown across a sidewalk and into a bollard and hedge. Luckily it wasn’t that cold, as that would have made the whipping snow much more needle-like, though the warmth put the streets and sidewalks right in that ultimate danger range of 0C to 2C where things are at their slipperiest. I’ve seen it worse in town, like where you have to use the bootpack to not get stuck in the thigh-deep snowdrift that was once a sidewalk.
Okay, I’m back in the land of cinnamon-scented urinal screens. The old HAL 767-3G5 ER, tail number N586HA had to return to the gate to get the brakes worked on. This is another one of the three Lufttransportunternehmen transfer aircraft. Apparently, the ABS light came on while taxiing to the runway, and that’s a mandatory checklist fail, so we had to come back in and get it looked at. It was probably a bad sensor, mabye affected by the cold temperatures, as they cleared it up in short order and we left only one hour late. I guess that’s what happens when you actually depart the gate early!
With temperatures of -6 to -8C and wind at around 3 to 8 m/s, I tried Propper softshell pants (no laminate membrane nor fleece inner layer) over Patagonia Capilene 1 long underwear. The cold could be felt more than less-breathable pants, especially when the wind blew. These pants would probably be OK in these temperatures for highly aerobic activities like snowshoeing or skinning up on a splitboard, but the urban comfort level gives out around 0 to -3C or so without a heavier baselayer.
Other than two bottomless powder days in Niseko I only got in one craptastic day at Sapporo Kokusai. Things timed out rather well this time at Niseko with a big storm preceeding me and continued snowfall while I was there. Things timed out poorly at Kokusai, with my visit bracketed by good days. The steeper powder stashes were all tracked out, and the unridden areas were still a little too soft to be able to carry speed on the shallow slopes. Monday would have been epic, and today (Wednesday) would have been not so suckariffic. Eh, sometimes you just have to chance it. You can’t nail the timing all the time. I guess I could have tried to hit there today then head straight to the airport and jump in the onsen before boarding, but there was the chance that heavy snows could have snarled ground transportation and I would have been stuck. As is with the holidays, traffic on the major highways has been pretty bad.