Day 3 - Nozawa Delivering the Goods

3 days of skiing down, 3 to go. Big improvements today for both Sally and I. We got away pretty early this morning catching the Nagasaka Gondala up to Yamabiko Station (1,407m) and skied down to Hikage.

The weather in the morning was snowy however minimal wind. In the afternoon however the weather cleared and we were greeted with clear skies and sun.

We had a lesson in the afternoon which allowed us both to work on our technique. At the end of our lesson our instructor took us down a black (advanced) run. This was my first black run and I made a positive start, navigating my way down the first 30-50m of moguls which was quite encouraging. This proved to be a bit of a false dawn however as I spent the next 100-150m falling over and sliding down the slope on my arse (the photo of me skiing below was one of the few times I was actually upright). It was at this stage I gave up and decided to walk the rest of the way, which proved to be just as difficult, if not more than skiing.

All was not lost however as we made great progress throughout the lesson and will tackle more of the red runs and explore more of the mountain tomorrow.

In the afternoon we were greeted with an amazing sunset over the mountains to the west. We went with a very traditional Japanese dinner of burgers (at least my beer was Japanese) and got some washing done at the coin laundry down the road.もっと詳しく