Little did we know we were departing on this journey with members of the PSIA National Tele Team. These are the guys that teach the teachers. The trip organizer, Ross Mattlock, is on the team, but he and buddies Pando and Scotty were also over here to clinic with the TAJ, Telemark Association of Japan and work with their professionals. These pics are them working with Azu and Nioko. Two female rippers (I mean rippers) from the TAJ. Nioko is currently racing for Japan on the World Cup Circuit. We were extremely lucky to listen in and get the attention from the real pros. Anyway, kind of rough conditions at this point, but the snow had started . . .
Nioko and Scotty ^
Azu and Pando ^
Snowing harder ^. Grabbed some lunch (the lunches here are actually killer Japanese food even for them. Imagine: Wok fried pork on Noodle Soup). The team:
Check the pod of chick tele rippers at the end. As usual MJ didn't have a thing to say. Powered up, we found more snow than with thought. See below. I have been a lot places where it snows. When this rolled in, it dropped a couple of feet in about two hours. I have seldom, if ever seen anything like. Ross demonstrated powder technique:
Azu is pretty tall ; ), but we almost lost her anyway:
As for me, after trying it myriad ways, Pando finally said the one thing the hit it: "Vertical Femur". I now know why these are called drop knee turns. Hero snow helped, but snappy tele turns with stupid face shots. It was a break through and a big big day. We lapped a killer section over and over and our tracks were basically the only ones there, though they were generally filled with new snow when we got back. The kind of stuff that would get ravaged in seconds in our neck of the woods. It was instead our private playground. Like you read about. Sugoi Hokkaido!
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