It is that time of year again - we are in Hokkaido with a big group of friends (ever expanding too, there are 25 of us this year!) for the big ski trip. I can't believe it has been a whole year since we went to Rusutsu, but time flies when you're having fun. This year we have come to a place called Niseko Hirafu, and it is great. As there are so many of us, we are in girls and boys rooms rather than couples, so Will gets a well deserved rest from my snoring! Unfortunately thought that means the group of girls I am with have to put up with it.
We flew up on Thursday very early, and got a coach to our hotel which is lovely. The lifts are about a 100m walk across a car park, and we went night skiing last night. I have never tried that before, it was so pretty and really peaceful. On the first afternoon I went out with Will just to find a couple of green runs and get our confidence up. The colour coding of the runs works a little differently here from in Europe. There is no blue, just green, red and black. At first we thought that meant they were just broader descriptions, but here in Niseko the greens are quite steep, which was a bit of a shock to the system. I was ok after a few minutes but Will seemed really timid and wouldn't get any speed up. I waited for him, and we had a look at his skis - and found that the bindings were too loose. His feet moved around easily, and when he lifted one leg, the ski came off! We picked our way down slowly and called it a day. Fortunately it was easy to fix for Friday, as that was the day we had a full day included in the package and we wanted to make the most of it.
A promising start
We got up and headed high on the mountain. We found some good runs and had a great time exploring, although the visibility was poor. We kept hoping it would clear but it lingered all morning. When we got back to our side of the mountain it was like E.T was going to emerge from the mist at any time, with odd lights shining from poles and echoing announcements in Japanese coming from all directions. We decided to go back in for a break and some lunch. It extended into a whole afternoons relax, which I think we needed. We went out again at about 5.50 for some night skiing. I had never done that before, it was very peaceful and a bit eerie on the lifts, but actually a bit easier than it had been in the day, as we stayed at the base of the mountain and the lights shone at such low angles that you could see all the bumps. It was lovely. I really wanted to go a bit higher up, but the fog hadn't lifted from the afternoon so we didn't risk it.
Pippa and Aja about to set off
Most of our group are snowboarders, and we had never tried it, so on Saturday we hired a snowboard and boots for the morning and went off to try to learn. We couldn't get in for a lesson which was a shame, but Kate was with us and even thought she is only really a beginner herself, she could tell us enough to get us going and give us pointers as we went along. We stuck to the "family course" right at the bottom near the hotel, which the night before had taken about 2 minutes on the skis. Half an hour and many bruises later, we got to the lift at the bottom and decided to go for a hot chocolate to recover. We got the hang of stopping and doing a kind of falling leaf type movement, and Kate was impressed at how we picked it up, but there was still horrible visibility and snow blowing in from all sides so we couldn't see well. When we got to the cafe and took off our gear, everything was caked in compacted snow and soaking wet. We went out for another go, but because we were so wet our goggles steamed up straight away and we could see even less! We had one more run (and a lot more falls) and went back to the hotel.
Most of our falls were just tumbles and because there was so much fresh powder it was a soft landing. We did have one painful fall each thought, and snowboarding uses all different muscles to skiing so we really ached when we were done. Somehow during all this I also managed to get friction burns on the inside of both my knees - I still can't really figure out how that happened, but it must have been when I was crawling around trying to get up each time. I only noticed when I got into the onsen and felt it stinging.
An onsen after a day of skiing is bliss. The one here was just mineralised enough to have a nice smell, and lovely and hot, but outside under a wooden roof, which meant you could sit there in the dusk with snow falling, in a hot steaming bath and unwind. I am going to miss it if I ski anywhere outside of Japan! As the storms got up the snow would blow in and melt on top of the water.
The weather on Saturday kept getting worse and worse, with howling winds and closed lifts. Some of our group had gone to another area and couldn't get back as the lifts closed and the buses stopped. A lucky 4 got the last taxi, and the rest just had to sit it out until the lifts opened enough the get over the top. That was the sheltered side, last night we were talking to a group who had got stuck and had to get a room at our hotel for the night. We were beginning to get worried about the flight back on Sunday.
We flew up on Thursday very early, and got a coach to our hotel which is lovely. The lifts are about a 100m walk across a car park, and we went night skiing last night. I have never tried that before, it was so pretty and really peaceful. On the first afternoon I went out with Will just to find a couple of green runs and get our confidence up. The colour coding of the runs works a little differently here from in Europe. There is no blue, just green, red and black. At first we thought that meant they were just broader descriptions, but here in Niseko the greens are quite steep, which was a bit of a shock to the system. I was ok after a few minutes but Will seemed really timid and wouldn't get any speed up. I waited for him, and we had a look at his skis - and found that the bindings were too loose. His feet moved around easily, and when he lifted one leg, the ski came off! We picked our way down slowly and called it a day. Fortunately it was easy to fix for Friday, as that was the day we had a full day included in the package and we wanted to make the most of it.
A promising start
We got up and headed high on the mountain. We found some good runs and had a great time exploring, although the visibility was poor. We kept hoping it would clear but it lingered all morning. When we got back to our side of the mountain it was like E.T was going to emerge from the mist at any time, with odd lights shining from poles and echoing announcements in Japanese coming from all directions. We decided to go back in for a break and some lunch. It extended into a whole afternoons relax, which I think we needed. We went out again at about 5.50 for some night skiing. I had never done that before, it was very peaceful and a bit eerie on the lifts, but actually a bit easier than it had been in the day, as we stayed at the base of the mountain and the lights shone at such low angles that you could see all the bumps. It was lovely. I really wanted to go a bit higher up, but the fog hadn't lifted from the afternoon so we didn't risk it.
Pippa and Aja about to set offMost of our group are snowboarders, and we had never tried it, so on Saturday we hired a snowboard and boots for the morning and went off to try to learn. We couldn't get in for a lesson which was a shame, but Kate was with us and even thought she is only really a beginner herself, she could tell us enough to get us going and give us pointers as we went along. We stuck to the "family course" right at the bottom near the hotel, which the night before had taken about 2 minutes on the skis. Half an hour and many bruises later, we got to the lift at the bottom and decided to go for a hot chocolate to recover. We got the hang of stopping and doing a kind of falling leaf type movement, and Kate was impressed at how we picked it up, but there was still horrible visibility and snow blowing in from all sides so we couldn't see well. When we got to the cafe and took off our gear, everything was caked in compacted snow and soaking wet. We went out for another go, but because we were so wet our goggles steamed up straight away and we could see even less! We had one more run (and a lot more falls) and went back to the hotel.
Most of our falls were just tumbles and because there was so much fresh powder it was a soft landing. We did have one painful fall each thought, and snowboarding uses all different muscles to skiing so we really ached when we were done. Somehow during all this I also managed to get friction burns on the inside of both my knees - I still can't really figure out how that happened, but it must have been when I was crawling around trying to get up each time. I only noticed when I got into the onsen and felt it stinging.
An onsen after a day of skiing is bliss. The one here was just mineralised enough to have a nice smell, and lovely and hot, but outside under a wooden roof, which meant you could sit there in the dusk with snow falling, in a hot steaming bath and unwind. I am going to miss it if I ski anywhere outside of Japan! As the storms got up the snow would blow in and melt on top of the water.
The weather on Saturday kept getting worse and worse, with howling winds and closed lifts. Some of our group had gone to another area and couldn't get back as the lifts closed and the buses stopped. A lucky 4 got the last taxi, and the rest just had to sit it out until the lifts opened enough the get over the top. That was the sheltered side, last night we were talking to a group who had got stuck and had to get a room at our hotel for the night. We were beginning to get worried about the flight back on Sunday.
An ice bar. Literally! This was just Mary in the doorway.Sunday had a forecast to be better than Saturday, but Saturday's storm overran a little. At breakfast we couldn't see a thing out of the windows. Partly this was because they were half covered with snow that had blown onto them horizontally and frozen, but even past that it was just white fog. We had got up early specially to try and go out as a big group, but the door from the ski store area was snowed shut. Some of the boys went out at 8am to try to find out what was available, but were back by 8.15 as every lift was closed. Buses weren't running, it was still snowing and too windy to be safe. And the Japanese weather forecast is usually so accurate! We were so disappointed. By about 10am the single slow lift on the family course was running, so we decided to try it out. we were back on skis, so it only took 2 minutes to get down, but then as it was the only lift running on the whole mountain, the queue for the lift was 20 minutes and halfway up the slope. We did 2 runs and gave up. With the wind still biting and a massive queue it just didn't seem worth it. After one last onsen we packed everything up and sat in to wait for the bus (4.20pm).
Queue for the liftWe did manage one last venture, down the hill into the town for a pie from an Australian shop for lunch. It was very nice (we don't get pies very often here so lots of people were very excited at the prospect), but not nice enough to walk through that wind! It is now 3pm and we are all sitting around in the lobby waiting to hear if we will be able to get back. So far only one flight has left Sapporo today, so even if the bus can get us to the airport we could have a bit of a wait to get home. And this with 18 ISSH staff here!! I don't want to be the one who makes the call to the headmistress! I am just going to have a hot chocolate and hope for the best.
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