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Volume 5
- Can you smell snow coming? |
DISCUSS THIS FEATURE
HERE
15th October 2002
With the arrival of each autumn, resort life in Japan seems
to get that much busier.
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It doesn’t help that the local snow hounds are
screaming by now for nature’s special treat. One told me the other day that
he could actually smell the coming snow via rain blowing in from the sea.
I’ve heard of being able to predict a coming weather change through feelings,
but actually smelling the snow coming? Have you ever heard of such a thing?
We do get some cold rainy days with the fall weather here in
Niigata Prefecture, but these are tempered by long strings of some of the best
weather of the year in my opinion. By that, I mean waking up to clear blue
skies and enjoying pleasantly warm weather without humidity in the afternoons,
followed by cool evenings ideal for sleeping. This is complemented by the
offerings from the autumn harvest and fresh seafood. It truly does remind me of
the “Indian Summers” I experienced growing up in the Pacific Northwest
region of North America.
In volume 4 of The Setting Journals from this past June, I
laid out the three main aspects of green season work at our resort. Almost four
months on, I’ve found that we’re still busy with the second one, carrying
out maintenance and construction. I’ve been reassured that this is quite
normal for such a time of year. It still amazes me how much is going on at the
same time here. Come with me while I take you on an October tour
of two parts of the resort.
Village Station 8:15 am
Maintenance workers
heading up the mountain.
We recently purchased a new industrial lawn mower, so the
maintenance workers (who double as ski patrol in the winter), are all very
happy about this. I like to think that I know a thing or two about cutting
lawns, from cutting so many of them for money when I was in high school. It
took me some time however to figure out that this machine was in fact a lawn
mower (initially, I thought that it was a machine for churning up the earth).
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The new lawn mower |
I got lucky with the weather and the fact that staff members
were trying out the machine, so I started taking photos & peppering them
with some questions:
Hey, why are you guys so keen to keep the grass short?
The answer is that they all want to ski as soon as possible.
If the grass is short when we receive the first snow of the season, skiing is
possible. Naturally, this led to the next question:
What is so good about only being able to ski on a little bit
of snow?
I was told that working on a mountain is harder during the
green season. Having to deal with dust, trees and steep slopes, especially when
using a machine such as a lawn mower or chain saw, can be very hot and tiring.
One also has to carry a day’s fuel supply, in addition to safety gear, a
packed lunch and drinking water. Even if you have a little bit of snow to work
with, it makes things much easier, as gravity takes care of a lot of the
details involved. Besides, the cooler weather is much easier for carrying out
mountain related tasks.
I also managed to catch up with a lift crew heading up the
mountain. I stopped them to ask:
Why are you guys driving up the mountain? Why don’t you
ride the Gondola?
The head Gondola guy explained that even if they were to
ride up one in the Gondola, the maintenance work involved at various points
along the way would still mean a long walk from the summit, so it’s actually
more efficient throughout the day to have a vehicle. In hindsight, I’ve just
realized that as these are the same guys who operate the Gondola from three
stations (lower, mid & upper), it’s not possible for all of them to ride
the Gondola at the same time.
If I wanted to take advantage of the nice weather that day,
it meant that I would have to focus on some other activity around the village.
After looking around a bit, I remembered that just above the village over by
the river, there is a new building where we house the winter vehicles used on
the mountain. I had visited this building a couple of times in the winter, but
never during the green season. I decided to walk over there and see what was
up.
Pisten Bully Base 11:00 am
Average working
day in October
When I arrived at the building, I was surprised to find all
of the vehicles minus their treads that make them so effective in the snow. As
I looked around the place, the memories of a previous meeting there came
flooding back, and it is a pleasure today to be able to share this story.
A few years back, I was asked to interpret at a meeting
between the local engineers from our company and a gentleman (from Colorado in
the States) who designs resorts around the world for a living. When I arrived
at the meeting, there was quite a bit of tension in the air, and it was clear
that it concerned the meeting’s discussion. What wasn’t clear however was
whether the friction was being caused by engineering aspects of the meeting,
communication problems, or perhaps a little bit of both.
The various parties proceeded to brief me on the
conversation to date, and I was doing okay until the guy from the states
started saying, “We’ll Pisten Bully this, and we’ll Pisten Bully
that….”. I could not follow, so I interrupted the conversation and asked:
Excuse me, but could you please tell me what a Pisten Bully
is?
Eventually, I found out that anybody who has ever been on a
ski hill will have seen a Pisten Bully, but perhaps used another layman’s
term for it such as Snow Cat. I was also confused about the correct spelling
for Pisten Bully, but understand it to be with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘o’
(That is how it is spelt on the logo mark of this vehicle).
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The following day, all the participants of that meeting
inspected the village area, including the building housing the Pisten Bully
vehicles. I was asked to come along, and that day I visited the Pisten Bully
Building for the first time. We even went upstairs and checked out where the
Pisten Bully Drivers sleep etc. during the winter. The gentlemen from the
States was very impressed with the building, and claimed it to be one of the
nicest Pisten Bully Buildings that he had ever seen. He even joked with the
Pisten Bully Drivers about wanting to turn the building into a hotel, but none
of them laughed. It was at that time that I promised to myself to return in the
future to check out the building again, and writing the Setting Journals gave
me the perfect excuse.
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It was pretty interesting checking out the Pisten Bully Base
at my pace and talk with the guys there, who I usually only see at the staff
cafeteria during the green season. To be honest, I felt a little bit like I was
walking into a setting of the station for the British ‘Thomas the Train’
book and television series. Instead of a variety of trains however, I saw a
bunch of lonely snow vehicles without treads. In addition to the regular
vehicles, there is also one that has a crane, and a couple of others used to
take guests on moonshine tours in the winter.
When I arrived there, I looked around for the portly station
master, I mean the Pisten Bully Master, but he was nowhere to be found. I did
manage to catch up with a couple of other guys that work there, and asked the
following questions:
Hey, how many of these snazzy vehicles do we have?
We actually have thirteen Pisten Bully’s, which are very
expensive world famous vehicles. They are used in places such as the arctic to
maneuver through the ice and snow in comfort. If you type in the name Pisten
Bully into a search engine, a lot of information comes up concerning their
history. Why don’t they have any treads on them right now?
For a variety of reasons I was told, with the main one being
that it is much easier to carry out maintenance. It is actually possible to
drive the vehicles without treads, and you may be able to see the wheels of a
Pisten Bully in one of the photos.
Hey, what’s this big yellow thing for?
It’s actually used for cutting the snow for the half pipe
in winter. Like all the other items seen around the Pisten Bully Base, it can
be attached onto a Pisten Bully. One of the reasons why half pipes are not
found at all resorts is because of the costs involved in purchasing such a
cutter for the Pisten Bully.
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Half pipe cutter |
Mechanics |
What’s this funny looking machine with water going into
it?
It’s actually used to wash the engine of each Pisten
Bully. You attach a couple of hoses from this machine to the engine of the
Pisten Bully and off you go. When the process is finished, all you need to do
is take the hoses off the engine, lower the hoods of the Pisten Bully back onto
the lower frame and you’re ready to carry out maintenance on the next one.
What’s the tall wooden structure in the middle of the
station, I mean yard?
That’s actually a customized gas pump for the Pisten
Bully’s. In the winter, we have a lot of snow here in addition to the fact
that when a Pisten Bully has its treads on clearance at a regular gas pump is
challenging, so this specialized structure is required.
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Gas pump
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When do you put the treads back on the vehicles?
We’ll do that around the middle of November. Please come
back then and take some photos with the treads on these vehicles. As well, you
may want to think about heading out for a night of grooming with one of us this
winter.
We’ll, I will definitely head back there in November for
some more photos and am looking forward to heading out with one of those guys
for a shift during the white season.
After this exhaustive bout of amateur journalism, I myself
had worked up quite an appetite, and retired to the staff cafeteria with the
mechanics to enjoy some lunch.
In Volume 6 of The Setting Journals, I’ll take you on a
November tour of the resort. If the station master let’s me, I’ll also
venture up to the Pisten Bully Base to try and get some photos of these
fantastic snow vehicles with their treads on. Until then, have a good one, eh?
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