Snowboarding

I first went up Teine Mountain before Christmas last year and on my third visit last Wednesday I finally got it! In getting it, I mean being able to turn both ways and travel in an approximate direction of my choice and start developing slowing and stopping techniques beyond flinging myself to the ground.

Teine is pretty accessible from Sapporo - from my apartment it's a subway ride to Sapporo Station then a train to Teine where a courtesy minibus takes riders up the mountain to the lodge. However I fear that with the season looking like its coming to a premarture end, that I've not really made the most of it. Sapporo, like the rest of Japan (and the world?) has had an uncommonly warm winter and nowhere near the amount of snow that should be falling. There's been no big dumps for ages and the foot thick ice blanketing the road outside my apartment has melted away to nothing. On Wednesday the slopes at Teine had had no fresh snow for a while, and ice paches were begining to be exposed. On my first ride down, I tried turning in and when I landed on my knees I felt like I'd kneecapped myself. There was a whole lot of pain to follow, mainly to the knees and bum, but I persevered so am pretty impressed with myself for progressing under such shit conditions.

I have been told that as the spring progresses and the ice start to melts, Teine will turn into slush mountain, which actually sounds kinda fun, but oh, just one more big dump so I can get the feel of riding on real snow - I'm starting to see how this business can get adictive.....