Looking Back DISCUSS THIS FEATURE HERE

The 2002/2003 season was an absolute corker by any standards. Well, it was for me at least.

The desperate prayers and frenzied dancing of hundreds of supplicants were rewarded by early snow of the like I’ve never seen before. Looking back through my Journals I see that there was snow on the higher peaks as early as October 2^nd and my first trip out to Hakuba 47 was on November 15^th. Conditions were excellent and there was even a bit of powder around. There was controversy on the Forum about the early snow with those who had been out loudly condemning the resorts for not opening earlier and expressing disbelief that anybody would be looking this crazy white gift horse in the mouth by staying away until the ‘traditional’ start in December. Hakuba 47, a resort I’m not particularly fond of, took on the aspect of a crusading saint to me as it worked to get ready and presented some very thrilling daily photos of people enjoying the snow. But then they lost my goodwill later in the season with their unfriendly patrolling.

Weather forecasts for the season were not promising. The El Nino phenomenon was going to make snowfalls paltry, and what little that fell was going to be very wet. It was going to be a ‘dantou’, a warm winter. However, the great, early dumps that fell on Hakuba weren’t wet at all. Far from it. And when you did a face plant in all that deep, dry snow, it was so cold it burned your face. So quietly, the weather forecasters announced in February that the effects of El Nino were ‘negligible’ and that in fact, it was quite a cold winter.

The people of Suwa needed no telling. Unlike last year, Lake Suwa froze completely. Not only did it freeze over, it split down the middle from the pressure and reared up in a ridge in the phenomenon known as ‘Omiwatari’, a sure sign of a very cold winter.
  

  
To have their revenge, the forecasters then announced that the Spring would come early. Obviously they don’t like winter sports because they always present the bleakest news with the biggest grins. However the great dumps that continued into March showed that really, they know nothing. I think their long-range forecasts are decided by a weatherman’s version of ‘spin the bottle’.

This season saw two snowboard legends killed in pursuit of their sport. Craig Kelly was killed by an avalanche in Canada, and Jeff Anderson died in Japan by falling off a banister. The deaths were reported as ‘tragedies’ and the two were posthumously declared to be saints with almost perfect personalities. Actually I had never heard of either of these snowboarders; nor had I heard of the male boarder who died at Nozawa Onsen the day before I went there and was found near where I had been riding. A third of the resort was closed off for the morning while they used a helicopter to search for him. This death affected me far more than that of the well-known boarders, and struck me as a genuine tragedy. Here was somebody pursuing their sport at a low level as a non-professional, in his free time. One day riding alone he just fucked up horribly and unexpectedly, ended up upside down in the snow, and drowned. This is a nightmare for anybody who rides alone at resorts with lots of deep snow and somewhat remote terrain. Somehow I feel that it’s more sad for an amateur to get a bad shake of the dice. Professional snowboarders are lucky to be able to live their lives winning acclaim for what they like to do best of all. I think I’d be a pretty affable, easy-going, humourous sort of person if I was in that sort of situation. Instead of the irritable person I am, I too would be a snowboarding saint. Dying in that line of duty doesn’t seem particularly tragic to me. Call me a cynic if you will.

A group of grey 7-Star old men got around and decided to promote skiing in Nagano, not by doing anything much but with a slogan. “Nagano - Suki- Oukoku" - “Ski Kingdom”. Boarders go elsewhere please. These people need a good smack in the head with a snowboard. You can picture the scene; the old farts are lined up in a Buddhist temple all squatting on their heels in the Zazen posture. They hope it will be over soon so they can have a smoke. In comes a foreigner all dressed in baggy snowboard togs holding a 169 Airwalk Champ. With a ceremonious air, he walks behind each 7-Star gent and smashes him on the head with the flat of the board. Then he goes in front of the now reeling old idiot, waves the board in his face and yells “See this? This is a snowboard! These days, more people like to ride these! Open your inner eye!”

Here is the inevitable badly drawn character that is supposed to drive everybody crazy with the urge to give up snowboarding and come to Nagano to play ski. I was disappointed to see that Governor Tanaka, who otherwise seems to be a thoughtful bloke, is chairing this farce. There isn’t even one mention of the single plank on this Nagano Prefecture website about it.
  

At the beginning of the season I called the Wada Toge Tourist Association to check whether the rumours about the National Skijo there were true. No, not the fantastic tales of a new teleport system but the grim murmuring that the place was closing down this year. A 7-Star prince of the Ski Kingdom informed me with much grunting and huffing that the lifts wouldn’t be running this year, but that the little field wouldn’t actually be closing. This is a very fine distinction the meaning of which escapes me. When prodded, the deskman told me they were hoping for more punters. Certainly the visitors to the Kingdom won’t be queuing up in front of the single, immobile lift hoping for the time when it starts moving again.

One of the beautiful things about this bountiful season was the fact that I’m now a free man, by one definition at least. In my first year of freelancing, I’ve been able to down tools and run to the hills at the first sign of Biblical amounts of snow. This has meant that I’ve ridden knee deep freshies without seeing another person for 15 minutes at a time. Running your own business involves a lot of stress but days like that go a long way to relieving it. Getting out of the workaday world when all the rest of Japan is still in it is highly satisfying.
  

  
The first 6 months through the hot period were grueling and full of anxiety. But then the big jobs with the long deadlines started coming in. Suddenly when the snow started falling in huge dumps I was able to get out when the conditions were at their very best. There was a time in February that we considered moving to Shikoku and putting the great snow of Nagano (the Ski Kingdom!) behind us. But Ehime’s pressure-cooker education system put us off, and here we still are with the season still hanging on.

This season I flatter myself that I stopped looking like a beginner. At the start of the season, I rode in my lousy old boots with a certain chutzpah but no finesse. When I got used to my new boots purchased in Bristol over the Christmas holidays, I made the ‘f’ word my watchword for everything I do on my board. If there’s no finesse, stop, take a break, and go back and do it with style. This really paid off, and gave me the confidence to get into the park. On my early season outing to Happo I tried hitting the wind-lips formed around the lift supports and landed 3 out of 5 of my tiny jumps. Then in mid-season I took a snap decision and flew down the approach to the table-top at Kashimayari. I found myself leaping right into the air, and even more mysteriously, landing with a tidy plunk. Now at the end of the season I head into the park knowing that I won’t look like a complete turkey, surely the biggest concern of any park debutant. I can even hear the rails singing their siren song, “Come hither and break your back.”

Snow Japan has had a pretty active season if the stats are anything to go by. In the peak of February, SJ had an average of between 3,500-4,000 unique user sessions per day on the site, and there are now over 5000 people signed up for the newsletter. The same numbers are seen on the forums too, so that means there’s a lot of snow lurkers out there.

The new functions and growing community have led SJ to triple their bandwidth. The site has been promoted in a number of other countries besides Japan, and has been featured in magazines and even on the radio.

SJ has also been working to build relationships with more resorts, which are reportedly taking note of opinions and suggestions put forward. Perhaps we can expect to see the fruits of this next season… These relationships have proved of value to the more than 170 winners of goodies this season. So far 200 lift tickets, 3 holidays, 2 backcountry tours, and 9 goggles have been sent out.　

Andrew of Snow Japan tells me he his really looking forward to a long, hot summer* so that they can work on putting more nice toys on the site for free.

Near the beginning of the season, the in-store radio show at Alpen informed me that this year’s snowboarders would be smarter, less-grungy and would be wearing a lot of orange and brown. Fortunately the latter prediction doesn’t seem to have been correct, although with a few conspicuous exceptions. With a background of blue skies and white snow, orange clothing is almost more of a tragedy than purple.

One of this season’s snowboard catalogues has this to say; 

Well, can you beat that? Actually the gear looks very much the same as any other to me, but then I’m still not quite sure what either ‘edgy’ or ‘left field’ mean, and I may very possibly be irrelevant in the modern world.

Actually, this season the cool boarders and skiers are looking much more alike. A lot of boarders have dumped their chalk bags and snot rags that they had hanging from their belts, and most have now pulled their trousers up. But oddly enough the really “happening” snowboard look seems to be 80s skiwear. Truly, I’ve seen some instances of “companies plundering the back catalogues of happening, edgy brands” -- at certain Hakuba resorts you can see groups of six or seven in tight purple pants, and wide shouldered purple jackets with electric pink and blue trim, -- with snowboards! What’s happening? They’re board-school neophytes in repurposed 80s horror-story skiwear whose ardour for the coolest snowsport has inured them to the shameful depredations of money-grubbing ex-ski schools. I didn’t see these people around last year. Does it mean that snowboarding is at last becoming so mainstream that it doesn’t even matter if it’s cool or not?

Yes, all in all, 2002/2003 was a corker of a season. Bring on the next one!