AsahiDake

What a weekend yet again, up in the 'Kawa.

After lugging my boarding gear and avy gear through two subways and a mob of muppets to get to the bus stop at Sapporo station.... I missed it by 10 seconds.
I rushed up to the vending machine to buy my bus ticket (yes, everything you must buy at a vending machine, dont ask questions, this is good system yes?), and it took awhile to process, causing me to miss it by seconds. The next one isnt for 30 minutes. Well, the Bus Helper Man agreed to let me leave my gear nearby while I fetched some food.

As I get back up for the 630 bus, I realize that I have no idea where that bus ticket went after I purchased it. Its gone, vanished. I question whether or not I actually pulled it out of the machine in my haste. So I pleaded my case to deaf ears, first to the Bus Helper Guy, then to the Robotic Window Mic Lady. The Guy told me just get on the bus and look for it on there. I took his advice, but when I got to the Kawa 2hrs later, I still hadnt found it. I fair and square paid for that ticket, and was ripping NOBODY off, but the bus driver and his offloader chased me down and demanded an extra $20. I objected, bowed, bowed deeper, apologized, and believed that by being honest I would be ok. After a tense 10 minutes where I pretended to have no idea what they were saying in Japanese and pleading, they grunted and turned away.

The rest of the evening turned into a blur, booze and catching up with the rest of the BK. We entered the twilight zone though later on, around 1am when walking to the Den. A random drunk(was he?) disturbed man was yelling obscenities to us in Japanese, then mumbling, then blocking our path even. In the end a soft shove dropped him and we ignored him the rest of the walk down the center street. We could hear him yelling still.... it turns out though, that the yells were actually at our other friend who was walking 2 blocks behind us, and the disturbed man actually pulled a pocket knife out on our friend! Thankfully he was ok and escaped..

Well onto the riding. We got out to Asahidake by 9 or 10, but the ropeway was closed due to high winds. Adake is the highest mountain (and an active volcano) in all of Hokkaido. It gets some very harsh weather. We hiked up a ridge to play a little, then checked in again... by noon the ropeway opened and we were on our way. From the top, we hiked up and to the right to get to one of a few great (but dangerous) avalanche bowls. Most of us were at least equipped with the gear, and had transceivers all on and working. The ride was amazing, deep turns, soft, and lots of room to open it up a bit. We rode the lift up one more time and hiked up to the next bowl for our last run, and it didnt disappoint either.

The afternoon I had planned to rip back to the city for hockey, but instead ended up visiting my buddy with a busted femur for 5 hrs or so, then caught the train back, home by 11pm. Even the train ride was a pain, with old couples sprawled out taking up double the seats until I dropped the hammer on that plan.

Unfortunately had to cancel on my Monday plans with some friends, but I was mentally and physically tired and starting to get sick... full on weekend.