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Finally a few warm days brought a day of stability to Hakuba. We have been getting snow and super cold temps for about 3 weeks now. Avalanches all over the place with a few deaths had me running scared silly. Compound that with a faceting Ice layer and other faceting layers though-out the pack. It was high time to pray to the gods for some warmer weather so that we could run the bigger lines. Well after 2 days of warmish winds it was time to check the snow pack.

 

At the start of the day, the idea was to dig a pit and more than likely turn back and ski the ridge to the resort. I have turned away many times this season. To be honest I think it is best to have turning back in your mind this season. As we got into the alpine we could see about 20 tracks through some of the 35 degree terrain. Nothing was sliding so I started to think, that maybe we could actually get to ski.

 

Got to the top of Happo and quickly climbed to the top of the "Za Mix" area of Happo. Prefect sunny weather and about -2c in the high alpine. Dug a pit and found a bomber snowpack much to our surprise. Still layers about but the faceting had decomposed enough to be consistent. Right then I knew I was going to ski the line and I started to get flashbacks from last season....

 

The last time I was standing up on this line in such prefect weather was with Kina Picket and Billy Poole. They were running lines for Nomads with another crew made up of Bryce Philips and Will Burks. I remembered how stoked everyone was to run new lines in such prefect weather. I remembered Billy going balls to the walls with a huge grin, and then hucking a rodeo 7 off of a rock like it was a walk in the park.

 

As I got ready to ski the line I got fired up. I wanted to ski that line faster than I ever had before. In a way, I wanted to let out the stress of work, the snow pack from hell and the sadness I felt out on that line. I also wanted to show Billy, that by having to opportunity to host and ski with him for that week, made me a better skier.

 

As I committed myself to the line I found a focus that I had not felt in sometime. I dropped in and in less than a minute of focus and speed I was in my safe zone. Amped, amped is what I felt, amped like I never have been before. It was like 100 kilos flew off of my shoulders on that run. I felt the passion for why I ski again and why I love to push myself even as I get older. Thanks to the crew that came out on the day, Kev, Mark and Chuckles.

 

 

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checking for layers

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Cutting the mini cornice as a last check.

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Commited

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One minute of fun starting now!

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Down the guts

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Kev dropping in!

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All smiles after a prefect run!

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The always fun river crossing, and yes Kina those are your old boots, Wills poles and Bryces googles. Gotta love free gear.

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The line to the left and the runout. the runout was so nice and light too.

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We-hey.... you calming down might do you some good you know! I was simply making a suggestion, as the photos are not loading on this page. I presume you wanted people on this page to see them (?). I wouldn't mind seeing them too. My comment above was hardly worthy of your response!

 

 Quote:
Why must you ask me this everytime?

Can I expect another bunch of PMs crapping on me?

 

I believe I sent a comment to you once - and did so politely. I also did it privately via PMs, not on the Forums. I certainly wasn't "crapping on you". And I certainly wasn't doing that where everyone else can read it, which you seem to be doing to me here.

 

\:\(

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(Is this actually happening?) confused.gif

 

Before I retire and for the record, I have not once 'told you what to do' and wouldn't think to do so. Like I said I recall sending you a Private Message, about photos. It was hardly offensive. I would say the same about the my post above which really is nothing more than a quick passing comment (in brackets even!) Your "every 3 posts" comment is simply ludicrous, I can only presume that you are totally drunk.

 

But I'm going to leave this here and now, it's really not my style. Don't worry, I'll make a note to never communicate with you again. Perhaps we should leave it at that rather than litter the Forums with this silliness. If you want to shout at me for some reason please do it via PM. Bye.

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  • SnowJapan Admin

I can't see the pictures either. I can't see any reason why they are not appearing, so can't really help there sorry.

 

Fattwins + muikabochi. I really don't know what you are both talking about above. I can only guess but it seems to be something about uploading photos to our site.

 

---

 

On the subject of photos, allow me to make one comment (directed at no-one in particular). Do we hope that people will upload their photos to snowjapan? Yes, of course we do. That's why the photos section is there. On the suggestion of a number of members last year we invested in redeveloping the photos section so that 5 photos can be uploaded at the same time as well as some other refinements. That work is done and we are now glad we did it. A quick look shows me that there are more photos for January 08 than the other two Januarys on record, so we are happy that people are using it. But more are always welcome and as well as increasing the number of photos that the entire audience of the site can view, uploading photos to SJ also in effect is one way that members can support us - thank you. (If people do upload photos elsewhere and have no basic problems with them being on SnowJapan as well, please do consider uploading them to add to the snowjapan collection as well - it's really quick & easy).

 

Are people in any way obliged to upload photos to our site? No, of course they're not - it's totally up to them.

 

smile.gif

 

Thank you.

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The photo problem is something to do with some hosting sites - I've had the same problem with both Facebook and Web Picasa. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I *suspect* they don't like only the photos being loaded, thus preventing their advertising opportunity.

 

I did a test using SJF and FT's photos - I could see the browser contacting Facebook for each photo, but nothing showed up.

 

Great TR FT! I look forward to the next one.

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Finally had a chance to read this over. Almost scares me to think how fast you must have been going after seeing you in action. Sounds like it was just what you wanted though. Thnaks again for yesterday, had another awesome Hakuba weekend all thanks to you guys!

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 Originally Posted By: Fattwins
No worries King glad that you had a good day!

The best. The only thing that was annoying was that my legs were in such poor shape. I'm not denying for a second that those lines were big and challenging for me, and I would have taken plenty of tumbles whatever, but I think I would have held it together better if I'd been on fresh legs like Saturday. My crappy backseat technique means my legs get tired pretty quickly, but Stunts and Dan have been helping me with some tips so I'm going to do my best to fix it up. But even so an epic day and really opened my eyes to what's available there!
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