February 18th, 2007
Regression
I’m on my way back from skiing, coasting down the Chuo Expressway with a sore throat and a lot of contemplating miles under my belt.
This weekend I visited Nagano for the first time since my semi-disastrous skiing trip to Kita Shiga in 2004. It’s kind of hard to believe that I’ve spent more winter seasons in Japan than I did at UVa. This time I went to Shirakabako, which is pretty close to Tokyo for a ski resort. By bus it’s about three and a half hours, with roughly forty minutes of rest stops in between.
The dantou (warm winter) has had a considerable effect on the area. Though it is the middle of February and the height of ski season, the snow was sparse and barely appeared right before the base of the resort. There were a lot of adventurous plants poking throguh the frost and most of the heavily travelled routes were solid ice.
I had a great time, however, and it was a pretty good value, ringing up to 19000 yen for a two-day jaunt with everything included except for lunch. Unfortunately I wasn’t as adroit on the slopes this time as last February, when I spent six hours as an amateur skiing god. It may have been the ice, it may have been a year’s rust, bad rental skiis, or a nasty cold that hit me at the end of last week, but I didn’t really get into the swing of things until it was three-thirty and my last run down the mountain before catching the bus.
I’m not the kind of guy to buy gear for a fad, and will suffer with the most beat and (to my naive mind) cheap setup as long as possible before committing to another ten pounds of bulk to make the next move all the more difficult. However, in doing the math of going skiing two-three times a year for three years, possibly more in the future, I decided it was time to buy my own gear, especially for these single-man economy runs that I’m growing fond of. So right now I have a pair of entry-level Dolomite boots and Kazama poles, and probably next weekend I’ll buy a pair of skiis. I wanted to get used by haven’t had much luck, so it looks like a little of my stock money is going towards some shiny powder rails to decorate my foyer. If only I can hunker down and get the chops to cut my own little slice of the mountain without it taking a chunk out of me.
