japandroo: Snowboardng at Sapporo Kokusai Ski-jo

The day before I had to go home, my friend Yolanda and I went snowboarding at one of the nearby mountains. We had originally planned to go to a resort called Niseko, the most popular destination in the area, but we were ignorant of the schedule and missed the only morning bus by about an hour. Rather than take the 2 hour bus ride starting at 11 am, we opted for a closer mountain and still had to run through the station to make it to the bus on time.

The bus fare (90 minutes each way), rental, and lift ticket were packaged for 5400 yen, or around $60US, which is ridiculously cheap. Lift tickets at my local mountains run up to 4500 yen by themselves. Needless to say, I was happy to pay it.

We were on the mountain by 11 am, but had to deal with RIDICULOUS lines for everything that first run. There were at least 5 or 6 different high schools doing "ski kyoushitsu/ski classroom" and they were clogging the runs and lifts everywhere you looked. For some reason, I expected high schoolers that live in Hokkaido to understand basic mountain etiquette, so I was surprised to see so many of the skiiers simply standing about in the middle of the mountain. The best run was perhaps 75 feet wide and fairly steep, and the kids were forming too lines and snaking their way down slowly, forcing boarders and other skiiers to ride the super thick powder on the left side and risk their board simply stopping, or braving the middle of the two lines and hoping for the best. I did each once, then resorted to waiting for them to finish.

Fell and slid on my head when I tried the black diamond run that turned into a mogul course...that was fun. Thanks to the snow, nothing hurt at the end of the day, and I managed to land my first small jump. A great time, and I'm definitely trying to get back out to Hokkaido next year.