JAPAN GRABS - Hakuba Blog 2013 / 2014
I would use Miz’s good board for this…
I would use Deano instead of a board!!!!!
Are you a 3 Hole Pattern?????
For mounting!!!!!
With my after market disk!!!!!
* nearly spelt it wrong!!!!!
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Happo One runs & a little backcountry tour
This past weekend I couldn’t ride but last weekend I spent the Saturday at Happo just riding the runs and on Sunday I met up with Nick from Hakuba Powder Lodge for a little tour until 2pm, then hit the 47 park (already posted). Here’s what went down (ha! that makes it sound awesome):
Saturday- I thought it’d be a rather lame day - nobody to ride with and just loads of Happo moguls to deal with.
Had a chuckle at this guy. He refused to get on the lift with me. He tried the old ‘no start’ when the lift came, but I caught him and I matched him with a ‘no start’ of my own 
He started gesturing at me to catch the next one but I was laughing and gesturing at him to move up. Another lift went by (there was nobody in the lineup) before I gave up and let him ride alone. Sheesh!
It wasn’t until I wandered over to the Panorama cat track before I got excited - the cat driver had made a bank after the first turn, and it was side hits galore. Nothing super amazing, but enough to play around on and learn new stuff.
I guess the highlight was bodychecking a girl who had decided to sit down right where I was coming out switch out of a handplant variation attempt. Her boyfriend wasn’t too impressed but she was nice
And I managed to capture the Happo samurai skier with the cam.
This guy is always around Happo so if you come for a visit, keep an eye out for him.
Sunday - As I wrote up top, I met up with Nick for a tour. I jumped in his car and we were surprised to not find any parking spots at all! Luckily Nick is a local and creates his own spaces. I honestly thought the tree was going to go through the windshield as he whipped in at speed.
So, we took it mellow and made it up to Mumeizawa, above Happo, in record slow time. Whatever, it was sunny and it was just nice to be outside. Just before we got to Mumeizawa, I reached down to put down my heel lift and my hand slipped and I had a hideous accident. There was blood and everything (except pain).
We got to the top of Mumeizawa and found a spot to drop in. The snow was ok - not good corn but it wasn’t sticky which was a relief. I went down first and got the camera out for Nick.
I apologize profusely for the skier photo….but it wasn’t to show you skiing, it was to show you the snow quality.
Anyways, I got a few shots from my knees and put the camera away. Then, just as I had pushed myself back up to a standing position, the snow gave way and I fell in a hidden glide crack!
my tomb
I fell in to my shoulders and stopped due to the board getting stuck…but the snow wasn’t holding, so I quickly got my pipes out of the hole and with some He-man power,I bicep’ed my way out of the hole with a whole lotta of grunting. 
We then traversed over to GaraGarazawa and did a sketchy drop in.
Got some nice turns then traversed again, bushwacked and aired some glide cracks to get to this point
This was the best run of the day and the Burton Spliff 148 (splitboard) I was on was so poppy and fun. It’s so good in spring 
After that we crossed the river and had to scale a wall. I gave Nick a foot up and he slipped a bit so I got a facefull of crotch (prob not an accident 
So after we got back to the car, I drove over to 47 for some park runs. April riding can be pretty fun
So ya pretty much had yaself some crotch and crack that left ya with a bleedin appendage, yet with a smile on ya face!!!!!
And to think that it all started with ya mate tryin to get wood in the car park!!!!!
And I hadn’t noticed that his split board had come apart in that pic till ya pointed it out!!!!!
I just thought his GoPro looked a little strange!!!!!
All in all it looked like a fun day!!!!! 
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Hakuba 47 park
Well, the season is coming to an end and it’s full on spring in town….but Hakuba 47 ski resort is still going strong. I went up last Sunday for another park day. It was weird getting back on the snowboard after two weeks off, but after a few runs I got back into the groove. Check out the photos:
The 47 park
Ran into Eiji Taki again and he spun off the big kicker for me
Some more riding:
The bear was there again!
Saw a bunch of skis and snowboards (and cars in the parking lot) done up with manga stickers
These abominations were on demo and they are definitely one of the stupider snow inventions
One big problem with the 47 park is the lineup for the medium jump line. On weekends in the spring you’ll have 30 to 40 guys in front of you! Everybody waits til the guy before them rides away from the second kicker before dropping in.
I really wish 47 would move the small line to a neigbouring run, and build two medium lines to manage the crowds better.
We took off when it got ridiculous and found fun elsewhere
A really cool thing about 47 is they keep a run open to the base.
It’s so nice to blaze down at the end of the day as opposed to taking a lift down.
There are also BBQ setups down at the base, in front of the Alice restaurant. These guys were having a tasty-looking BBQ party.
I definitely want to try to get a final day in the 47 park and one or two more bc days. Here’s hoping I can stay motivated!
That bbq setup is such a rad idea!!!!
Man, I love that Hakuba 47 park. I spent two whole days riding it a few years back and it was so sick! Two chairlifts, multiple lines to take, and beats pumping all day.
That bbq setup is such a rad idea!!!!
I want one!!!!!
Hey mate, did you get any more riding in to wrap up your season?
Hey K2,
Nah, just had some bad luck with the weather and unavoidable plans. This weekend is the last possible chance but we’ve had multiple rain events and really hot temps so the zone I want to get into is probably pretty nasty.
I really need to get cracking though and wrap up this blog though.
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The 2nd Last Post of the 2013-2014 Season
Hey everyone, I’m still around. In hindsight, the end of the season came as an afterthought due to inclement weather, nagging sore knee, my garden needing work and a small case of the can’t-be-bothered’s. I did get 57 days in this year which is pretty good, considering I have a full-time job not connected to the snow industry. Again, I got to ride loads of snowboards and I’m saving the final post of this year’s blog for a rundown of the best gear I used this past winter.
All the boards have finally been waxed for summer storage and put away 
(yep, that’s a 2015 Gnu Rider’s Choice I rode a bit this year /claim)
Last weekend, I had to go back up to Hakuba for a friend’s wedding, and look what I found on the wall in one of the main bars in Echoland, Master Braster:
So, which one of you put that up?
Finally, I just wanted to mention that I have added two new little shredders to the family!
This one, is nice and green and can shred an A4 size sheet of paper folded in half. It was the cheapest one on amazon so whatever. I got it to shred newspaper for my compost bin.
and the second little shredder is my second daughter, Emi!
So, as you can see, between composting and giving baby baths I’ve had my hands full this past couple of months!
I’ll just hammer out the board reviews soon so that I can move out of this Boardworld cubicle and let the Perisher bloggers use the extra space 
RAD RAD RAD!!!
Will the slideshows make in online for us to see at some stage marc or is it up to the photogs and their contracts/alliances etc??
I really want to see them!
It’s a bit late, but here are three of the four slideshows from the event (the 2014 F-Stop Mountain Shoot-out). They are definitely worth a watch.
This is the winning slideshow by Neil Hartmann.
The other videos can be found here:
http://fstopgear.com/news/2014-03/2014-mountain-shoot-out-results#.U-ggIaOsHpk