Brag: Went to Hakuba, Repped BW, Met Jeremy Jones

Went to Hakuba

Repped BW

Met Jeremy Jones

That’s awesome bpizzy just made my night!

Where in hakuba each photo looks very familar

1st pic looks like goryu. Did you tell JJ about sunscreen?

That’s so awesome, Benji! 

Thanks for sharing that with us.

yeow! Jeremy Jones is the best! did you talk to him much?

Had an amazing time.  Happy to share

1st pic I’m not 100% sure but I think its either Happo-one or Goryu.  I was only there for about a week and had an all mountain pass so I rode a diff mountain pretty much everyday.

2nd pic is at the bottom of the Hakuba 47 park lift, and the JJ pic was taken outside the Zenkoji Temple in Nagano.

I already posted once about it, but I will embarrass myself again for your enjoyment…

I actually ran into him 3 times in one week.  The first time was at a small restaurant/gift store/hostel(!!) at the peak of Happo-one. I was with my brother and we were considering trying out some Happo front/back-country and we saw some guys putting skins onto their splitboards, they had large packs and I went up to one of them straight away (turned out to be JJ) and started quizzing him on the front/back-country situation.  It was late in the afternoon and the weather was closing in fast and as he explained, him and his Teton Gravity Research crew were heading out on a 5 day backcountry tour/filming session (he didn’t mention that he was with TGR at the time) he dropped some knowledge on us and I thanked him (still not knowing who it was) and told him that he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Hakuba backcountry.  In hindsight, potentially the most embarrassing thing I have ever said.  They left soon after.

When we left Hakuba we went on one of the Nagano snowmonkey tours (to Jigokudani Monkey Park, amazing, pics below). There is 1.5 person wide trial about 2 km’s long from the road to the monkey onsen, and we walked right past him and the TGR boys when we were on our way down and they were on their way up.  It was icy and slippery, and I think I must have been watching the trail, but I managed to walk right past them without noticing them at all.  Once we had past them, my brother was like “I think we just walked past Jeremy Jones”. I shat bricks.

After the Jigokudani Monkey Park, our day tour went to the Zenkoji Temple (between Jigokudani and Nagano) and it just so happened that when we were leaving the temple, JJ & the TGR boys were on their way in.  Not one to miss my third and final opportunity,  I called him out, apologised for not recognising him earlier in the week (didn’t care obv, but did remember talking to us at the Happo peak) and got the pic.

Both times we talked he was super friendly.  Fantastic trip, fantastic experience.

Jigokudani: