You can sleep when you are dead

I was up at 7am this morning which means probably only about 4 hours sleep. It didn't matter though. We were here for one thing and that was to ski the pow. I looked outside and it was pretty clear; with all this snow about it could be a good day.

Breakfast is included in our package in Niseko so I managed to get Bruce out of bed for that but he crashed out again after that, I said I would check back with him at lunch to see if he was coming up.

Four hours isn't a bad amount of sleep to have, I felt fine actually. I'm sure the brisk mountain air and clear skies helped though. Trouble is it looks like everyone else had the same idea. Apparently the lines were as big as they get; and they were massive.

Once I did get to the top I was treated to some nice views of Mt Yotei though. I thought I better take the opportunity to take some photos of it cos i'm sure every other day is going to be snowed in ;O)

As you might expect the Japanese skiing experience is slightly different from skiing in other places. Some interesting points that come to mind.

- They seem very averse to risk. Some of the big tree sections are considered backcountry areas and has some strict rules surrounding them. This is a well known fact to anyone researching skiing in Japan though so it was no surprise. The reality of it is that there are plenty of trees to ski so I didn't really find it an issue.

- The lifties are very courteous. They are intent on making sure the chairs are devoid of any snow. Thankfully most of the chairs are detachable high speed chairs (although generally a little older than the ones in North America) so they have plenty of time. On the couple of occasions I rode a fixed one they were so focused on cleaning the chair that slowing the chair down ended up taking a back seat which resulted in it crashing into my leg; I made sure I helped out with that task from then on

- Most of the more modern chairs are hooded which says something about the weather they have here. They generally had older chairs here though, even some singles. I didn't see any tow ropes though (thank goodness)

- They make lots of announcements over loudspeakers which are attached to the lift towers. Most of the time I can't understand a word, it's a combination of english being a second language and the massive echoing effect.

All of these things enhance the experience of skiing in a foreign place I reckon. But culture wasn't the reason for coming though!

Unfortunately we were not seeing Niseko at it's best today. The was snow about but the wind and the morning crowds had really dealt to my powder dreams. Plenty of potential though.

Niseko United is actually 4 different areas, I only skied the Grand Hirafu side today, my favourite was the Hanazono area which is over the ridge from the village I was staying in. It had a nice "backcountry area" called Strawberry Fields. Some nice snow in there.

Bruce actually managed to come up for a few runs after lunch but the ankle is still not 100%. I suppose there was only a small chance it was going to recover before the end of the trip. We did some runs down the greens and then called it at about 3ish.

So an average first day, mainly exploring the place. Hopefully we get some more snow tomorrow.