Day 2 on the mountain dawned with snow still falling from the sky and by the time we were on the mountain it had in no way lessened. Of course, sometimes you don’t even make it to the mountain before your first little crash for the day.
Caroline has ever been an advocate for finding the path that
is both the quickest and requires the least effort to get onto the mountain. In
this case, she decided that was to walk to the point where things were down
hill, then put her skis on and ski along the side of the road where the
accumulated snow was. Unfortunately she didn’t take into account the fact that
she would have to cross the road to get onto the run. Now, had there been as
much snow on the road as there had been the night before, that wouldn’t have
been a problem. Unfortunately the plough had been down the road and exposed
some of the bitumen. She was only going slow, but that bit of bitumen was
enough to stop her in her tracks and send her tumbling right in the middle of
the road! Fortunately she wasn’t injured and no cars decided to add to her
dilemma!
Bel was a little more fortunate. She opted for the same
approach, but attempted to cross the road a earlier than Caroline had. She also
came in with a bit more speed. It meant she navigated the crossing of the road,
but wasn’t quite at the right level of skill to get up off the road and onto
the run. Instead she zipped up and tumbled, missing the point of entry. Again,
fortunately there wasn’t any injury!
I’ve been following a number of the Japanese ski locations
around Nagano on Instagram since we first started skiing here and had seen a
run at Madarao that I really wanted to try … something of a natural half-pipe
in amongst the trees. I’d suggested it would be something worth trying early in
the day. Most people opted to join in the venture given there was a beginner
run around the outside of it should it prove to be too difficult.
It was something of a task to get there, but that as done
successfully. On seeing the entry through the trees I was having second
thoughts. I have a couple of issues with skiing through trees. My tight turns
aren’t typically coordinated enough to give me a lot of confidence and more
importantly, trees don’t get out of your way and they’re a bit more on the
solid side than a nice mound of powdered snow! Add to that my fear of injury
and promise to myself to exercise caution and entering didn’t seem like
entirely the smartest thing to do. But I’d seen videos of kids getting through
there and was determined to do so even if it meant picking my way very
carefully into the pipe, sans skis if it came to it!
I managed to get in there without resorting to removing my
skis though certainly with zero elegance. If I’d been a better skier I would
have loved that little run, but it was at that point for me, where fun was
outweighed by lack of confidence, so although I managed to get through it, I
wasn’t about to return! I wasn’t alone in that assessment.
As the day wore on the snow didn’t really abate and
certainly presented some challenge after years without having hit the slopes. By
the end of the day there was a lot of discussion about everyone’s aches and
pains both from incidental crashes that people had endured and from using
muscles that hadn’t been used in those ways in a long time if at all.
For dinner, we had a booking for seven at one restaurant and five at another. With the day being Jason and Bel’s wedding anniversary we opted for Caroline and I to join the five in the Rowland party. We had a lovely dinner that was mostly uneventful apart from Jason suffering either a back cramp or spasm that left him wondering what the hell was happening as he stiffened and flattened himself like a board in his seat while the rest of us wondered if he was actually having a cramp/spasm or was about to eject a particularly difficult poo! Fortunately it passed and he was okay. There was no poo involved.
The restaurant did win my favourite translation error(s) though which was both charming and amusing:
I'm pretty sure its fried rice, you Plick! (kudos if you get the movie reference).
With dinner done, we headed back for more a little more quiet Qwixx and whiskey to finish off the day.
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