Nagano way this trip could have been better

Just this past week, I, and four of my good friends took a 4 night ski trip to Nagano. The group consisted of me, Andy, Dan, Mel and Lana. Our trip started at 5:00 AM on our first morning of break, and took about 5 hours of train rides to get there, but we eventually made it to the mountain. Our mountain of choice was Hakuba 47, the mountain where the Olympic Skiing Long Jump took place when Nagano hosted the Olympics. Here's a picture of me right after we got off the train (Note my super pumped up-ness.)

Once we got to the mountain we actually decided to do a little half day of snowboarding. We all rented boards and boots and got out on the mountain by about 1:00PM. Everyone was a beginner on the trip so the first half day worked well in providing some time for everyone to get the basics down. The weather was pretty nice and sunny as you can see, but the cover on the mountain was really sub-par. So instead of complaining, I decided to get GIANT CRAZY AIR, ON SKIS!!!!!

That Japanese girl to the right has no idea how sick my air was, she's just smiling because she has no idea what ridiculous tomfoolery I'm pulling right behind her.

So that was the first day of skiing. After that we got on a bus and took a short ride to our pension. It was basically a small hostel/house owned by an incredibly nice guy. Our room had three beds downstairs and a loft with space for two futons, so the men stayed on the first level and the ladies stayed up in the loft. It turned out to be a really perfect living situation. But the best part of our lodging was definitely the food. The caretaker person would cook us both breakfast and dinner, as they were part of our lodging expenses. Not only would he cook it up fresh for us, he would ask us when we would like to have it, and phone up to our room when our victuals were ready. It was, as the mormons would say "da bomb shiggity."

Our second day we had a nice surprise. We woke up to rain coming down outside our hostel and decided to go up to the mountain anyway. What we found was that the rain had turned to snow at the high altitude, and subsequently had a great day of snowboarding in lightly falling snow.

Our third day, though, was the charm. We woke up to literally a foot of fresh powder snow that had fallen during the night. Not only that, but it continued to pour powder on the mountain for the entire day. Here's a picture of just one of the amazing views I was able to capture on that day.

At this part of the mountain, the clouds were just swirling so I was able to sneak in while there was a break in the snow and snap some really beautiful pictures. It was absolutely one of the top 10 ski days I've ever had in my life.

One particularly interesting thing about the mountain itself was the lift ticket system. At the beginning of the day you are given a little plastic square with a chip inside that you have to keep in your coat at all times. The reason for this is that to get on the lift, you have to pass through a machine that would read your card, and tell you how much time you had left until that lift closed for the day. It was a whole lot better than waiting in all the lines back home, and the reassuring "Bing Bong!" that came from the machine pleased me more than it probably should have.

Our last day was just a great clear day, and everyone had a blast on the newly packed snow cover. Here's a picture of all of us on the last day.

From left to right, it goes: Lana, Andy, Mel, Me, Dan. This was taken right next to where we got off from the gondola, at the lowest ski-able part of the mountain. Overall, the trip went off without a hitch. We all had a great time, didn't get too sick of eachother, and had some amazing snow to snowboard in. It was really an incredible time.

Alright I probably won't be posting another one until after Christmas so I just want to wish a Merry Christmas to all those people who I may not get to say it to on the actual day. So I hope everyone has an awesome Christmas and a great ending to this past year.

Love,

Gorilla Monsoon