So for the record Asahidake was not in the running for my favourite areas to ski in Central Hokkaido.
My ‘love/not-so-much-love’ relationship with this volcano was based on tease. World class powder runs that last for 5 seconds was exactly that – a tease. So today was a ‘Skin-free’ day. John made it quite clear. Determined to have a kick ass day we decided to out psych the crowd. We missed the first lift up, but we didn’t miss the opportunity to watch where everyone was heading. We went the other way. The quest for ‘All Day Fresh Lines’ commenced.
(Click to enlarge image)
I robbed everyone a warm up run to find them all take a tumble on their first run in thigh deep pow along the steamy creek. No alarm bells though, because today I skied with all great and balanced skiers. They dusted themselves off and we went to the other side of the mountain where it was deemed too boring to ski. In the white out we traversed to the drop zone without anyone tailing us. The clouds dispersed and we were ready to pick our fresh lines down G2. We gave the steep and deep G1 a miss today because there was one line in it and clearly we were here for first lines not seconds.
Face shots, woohoos and snow beards accompanied us back to base, and we farmed skied along all the way to G3. No surprise as the morning went on our traverse track was followed by others. However, to my astonishment, no one was venturing out to G3. They were all repeating our previous lines. We gladly took the gift of a fresh slope and drawn 7 more pairs of lines. After 5 runs that face was covered with beautiful wiggles made by our skis.
It was time for our second last run, and we returned to our first drop zone. And… we found fresh lines further along our earlier tracks. This was getting ridiculous. On our 7th and last ride of the day Sarah from Scoutski managed to finish the day on smooth snow whilst the rest of us skied in front of a camera. Perfect 7, well done Sarah.
Although we could not access the full glory of Asahidake today from the top, our ‘Skinless Friday’ was just superb – note this one down as a ‘Love’ day.
Make Friends On A Powder Day 