Snowboarding Weekend!

Saturday 24th March

Snowboarding weekend woo! Today we went to Kagura ski resort in Niigata. Woke up at 6:30am and got everything ready. The other ALT friends coming with me today arrived at mine around 7:10am, we got our carpool stuff sorted, and set off! It was only an hour and 15 minutes drive to the ropeway station (Mitsumata Station) needed to get up to Kagura ski resort. If only the toll wasn’t so expensive (¥2190 one way) I would go to Kagura a lot more! Waited for one of our friends to get her rental skis sorted, then we took the ropeway up, took another lift up, took one more lift up to the top where there was a beautiful view of a lake and the surrounding mountains, and then finally hit the slopes! We went and did a few runs in between the trees, and it was so much fun! The snow was actually still pretty powdery up here so it was great! The tree runs were seriously SO much fun, and the 2nd one we went on was the best because it had a half-pipe-y bit, and was just a very thrilling course overall. It was hard to get back up to that course though, because you come out of the tree run on the other side of the mountain, so you have to take like 3 lifts to get back to it! Because of that, we only got to do that run maybe only 3 times. After we’d had our fill of the off-piste runs, we were absolutely starving so had lunch on the other side of the mountain where the other ropeway is (Tashiro Station).

After taking a longer much needed lunch break, we headed back out again to ski on this side of the mountain. We only did one run though before realising that it was a lot later than we thought so we rushed back to get on the lifts that carry us back to the other side of the mountain, so that we wouldn't be stuck on the wrong side! Made it back on time thankfully, and did one last ski down to the ropeway station and called it a day. Packed up and headed back home at around 17:00, arriving at around 18:30 which wasn’t too bad at all. I dropped off my friends at mine first so they could go home, and then went to fuel up since I’m going snowboarding again tomorrow!

Truly gorgeous view!

Sunday 25th March

Woke up early at 6:00am, got everything in the car, popped by the convenience store to get some breakfast, and then set off! Arrived at Tanbara ski park at around 8:15am, got my lift pass, and hit the slopes! It was quite a small ski field, but the runs were pretty wide and spacious so it was a good place to practice and work on your turns! Since I came by myself today, I just used the singles lanes so I didn't have to queue up long for the lifts either. I did the intermediate run many times (since that was the one that had the speediest lift, and also because the beginner runs were pretty crowded) practicing carving and ollies, and then boarded all the way to the bottom on one of the more relaxed beginner runs. The snow was getting pretty slushy by this point, even though it had been decent in the morning. Had some dippin dots ice cream and a small water break at the bottom before heading up again to the same intermediate run. This time I spent more time going on the boxes at the side since the snow was getting really slushy and heavy, so you couldn't really make any carves in it. By 13:00 the snow had gotten too slushy and I was feeling a bit tired too, so I decided to call it a day and left the ski field early at 14:00. Got home super early at 15:00 because there was hardly any traffic on the expressway. Had an early dinner, did some laundry, and then went to bed.