Couple Kids in Japan

I got a short notice call from MSP to head to Japan with Seany and Richie Permin. Having never been to Japan and knowing that with those two it would be a wicked trip, I booked my ticket and 5 days later Sean and I hopped on a plane leaving YVR for Sapporo. Clayton from Black Diamond Lodge met us at the airport and took for a welcoming Japanese dinner and the next morning we picked up the rest of the crew and headed for Niseko. It hadn’t snowed in about 4 days but I guess we brought the snow. Our first day we woke up to about 30-40cms of fresh and decided to get our legs under us by doing some hot laps on the resort. I could not believe how light and awesome our turns were. I’ve always heard about this mythical snow and now had experienced it for myself. The hype is real! Japan does things a little differently. They haven’t exactly adopted the western style of avy control. They have much of the hill closed off, the majority being amazing tree skiing, all closed for “safety” reasons. After a couple runs sticking to the open runs we had to start ducking ropes. It was impossible not to. They were some awesome turns and such a great way to kick off the 2 weeks here. As we started to push further into the closed terrain we kind of ran out of luck. While we waited for patrol to ski down out of sight so we could duck into the goods we didn’t notice the undercover patroller in regular clothing with a radio standing up the run from us. They were wise to our tricks and as we were skiing down, they were on the radio preparing to bust us. Sean and I made it to the bottom detected but not caught. Richie wasn’t so lucky. His bright green jacket was less stealth than the black ones we were rocking. The confrontation started and he was cornered. He told them he didn’t speak english but when they asked him a question he answered a little too perfectly for them to believe that. Not wanting to get the authorities involved he handed over his pass. Later that night we found out that all our passes were pulled. So it was pretty definite that we would be doing road laps for a few days. Sean had some zones in mind from a previous trip. It was snowing hard all day so we stuck to pillow poppers and tree taps in the trees. The snow sticks to the trees and makes for perfect pads to tap or pop off. It was a sick day trekking around in the woods. Had some good hits, took some photos and a couple vids and had some good times. Stoked to do it all again tomorrow.

Riley