I arrived at Narita at 8P.M. and after going through customs I shuffled through my bags and pulled out my snowboarding gear and board before sending the rest of the gear off to my final destination through a company named Black Cat who deals with your 23 Kilo bag for 20$ and went off to Tokyo with board and boots in hand. My first night was to late to catch the bullet train so I grabbed a Capsule Hotel in Asakusa and walked around Shijuku with my sister in law before catching the first bullet train the next day and heading out to Nagano on the West Coast, 2 hours away from Tokyo for my 5th season in Japan.

I arrived at the tail end of a big storm that had been been pumping out snow for the prior week. I arrived at the local ski hill at 10:00 without sleep and after getting my seasons pass we were riding epic powder with friends.

Immediately we were in the goods in and heading for zones that they hadn’t tracked out over the days, smashing pillows and riding bottomless Japanese powder.

The first day I rode with Dan, Ben, Louie, Julia and another Kyle, riding 30 minute laps moving around the resort to zones that we had learned over the years and finding fresh snow lap after lap.

We rode until the last gondola and by the time we got back to where we were staying I was crashing while Kyle, Ben and Dan were messing with me. Both Dan and Kyle had been there for a month while Ben had been in town for 3 days. It was good to get back in town and ride the final day of the storm.

The next morning was clear and after an early morning board line up we were on the first gondola heading up the mountain to starting to explore the bigger lines and looking out among the Nagano Basin.

We would do hour long hamster wheels where we would have to take 4 chairs to get back into the zone, taking 8 laps before the day was done.

The later the day went on the further we would head out among the ridge switching from riding to hiking numerous times staying on the ridge top before dropping into untracked valleys.

As we traversed miles down the ridge we would come across steep faces, trees cliffs and gullies. The options are endless when the snow is good.

For the next 4 days we started ski touring and with another first Gondola bump we were riding into the backcountry and switching over to skinning.

With a little bit of effort we were riding 1000 foot north facing terrain of steep gullies and faces putting in skin tracks to utilize for a few laps.

Over the next few days the snow got warmer but we made the most out of North facing runs riding from 8:30 to 6:00 P.M. day after day.

Soon enough Ben and Petra were off back to Tokyo after a first gondola lap of a 2.5 mile long beautiful untracked line and it was raining to the top of the mountain.

For the next few days I rode groomers around the hill with my friend Dan that I’ve had the good fortune to share memories of Japan with over the past 3 years. Here he is getting his calories through the process of eating butter.

The forecasts were looking dire with the occasional rain storm and high pressure so after 7 days of riding powder we were in for a drought leaving ice and crust on the hill. I was staying until March 12th so I was happy to wait it out and hopefully soon the snow would come back.