Paul Hartrick » Snowboarding

Gala Yuzawa meets Benny Hill

-Paul — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:02:37 +0000

While enjoying a post snowboarding beer at Gala Yuzawa yesterday I decided to try something completely different with my Tachyon XC helmet camera.

Gala Yuzawa meets Benny Hill from Paul Hartrick on Vimeo.

Indoor Snowboarding in Japan

-Paul — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:34:59 +0000

On the weekend I started my pre-season Snowboard Training at the Sayama Indoor Ski Center. It’s about a 1 hour commute from Shinjuku Station and would have to be one of the cheapest Snowboarding trips in Japan.

The day started well, minimum of waiting for the chair lifts, the snow wasn’t that busy so beginners can have a good day out without getting into any trouble.

I took this from the conveniently located restaurant while sipping a beer over lunch, you only get to see the bottom half from the restaurant, the total length is about 400 meters of usable snow.

There is also a video on Vimeo that shows what Indoor Skiing in Tokyo is like.

Snowboard Boots and Bindings

-Paul — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:30:48 +0000

Decisions decisions… current front runners for my new Libtech Skate Banana is a completely Flow setup.

A set of Flow Flite4 Bindings

and a pair of Rift White Boa Coiler Boots

And lastly book a few weekends away in the snow.

Snowbaording at Nozawa Onsen

-Paul — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:40:09 +0000

Last weekend was my second attempt at snowboarding, and we elected to head up to Nozawa Onsen, about 1 hours drive from Nagano. If you haven’t heard of Nagano, the 1998 winter olympics was held there. As you can imagine the skiing is excellent, unfortunately I’m not.

The trip started with the 6:09 Shinkansen to Nagano, approx 2 hours, then a $100 cab rid to the ski town. Once we had arrived and dropped the bags in the room, we headed back down for a few drinks. As usual it turned into 5 bottles of wine and some good laughs.

The name of the hotel we stayed in is Haus St.Anton, ハウス　サンアントン　highly recommended for anybody going that way, and the owner can also speak good English if you are worried about communication.

We headed own the next morning for a very western style breakfast, just what you need for a day full of physical activity. We walked to the mountain around 8:30am, geared up and hit the snow.

The previous week I had gone to Gala Yuzawa were the sun was shining and my whole experience was great, this time round it was snowing, raining and visibility was about 5 meters, I can safely say the fun police were in full force.

The ski runs at Nozawa Onsen are very long, about a 1 to 4 km’s long, and by the end of each run I was so worn out I needed a 10 minutes break. As much fun as it was, I think I need to stick to shorter runs while I am learning.

I finished snowboarding at about 1pm, headed in for lunch and beer, and the beer didn’t stop until we hit the shinkansen at 9pm Saturday Night. We also hung around for a great dinner, again a good mix oflocal Japanese cuisine and hearty western style grub, and of course more wine.

Because of the rain and Grey sky’s there wasn’t much of a photo opportunity, but here they are anyway. Check out the track on the 4WD, very serious snow driving!