The Teine Mountains are located about an hour from downtown Sapporo by train/bus. If you had a car on you, you’d find them significantly closer; perhaps closer than you’d think a mountain of such substance had any right to be to a metropolis like Sapporo. It was this proximity that was part of the reason Sapporo/Teine was awarded the 1972 winter Olympics, and it was this proximity that had Lindsay, Mark, Heather, and me so excited to get out to Teine for the first time over the weekend. Sapporo is, in case you haven’t noticed, our main urban base of operations, and to have a quality mountain so close now that we were all well into snowboarding would be, well, prime.
So the weekend was spent at Teine during the days and in Sapporo at night with Heather and, alternatively, with Mark and Lindsay. The two adoptive siblings of mine seeming to be in a polkaroo-ish relationship as Mark missed Saturday due to what was likely full-blown alcohol poisoning, and Lindsay reactivated her UGG-related (god, how I want to burn those ‘boots’) ankle injury by taking a particularly bad spill on the hills, assuring she’d miss Sunday.
Lindsay, all smiles before our first run down the mountain.
Waiting.
Apologies; these would have been more awesome were they not taken on an iPhone
Lindsay almost taking out a dude
View of Teine, from Teine, at the close of day 1
Storms blew in and out both days as the elevation of the mountains guarded us from the slippery melt going on in Sapporo Proper. The best one struck in the wee hours of Saturday night, continuing on into Sunday morning. It dumped down powder so fine that it elicited expletives from Heather, who was nursing her tailbone and practicing her toe-side in the low-lying Olympic zone.
Further up in the Highland zone, Mark and I were just as happy with Sunday’s conditions. We discovered a run I’d avoided on Saturday and dubbed it “Columbia’s Finest” for the way it seemed to gather the powder into piles for us. And then there was the run beside it, which I Nicknamed “The Confidence Builder”: a course that switched back and forth across the face of the mountain.
It was only a green run, but its mix of well-groomed flats and sharp turns inspired something in me, and I took to bombing down it ever quicker, keeping my board straight and tucking down close to the ground until I could hear nothing but the wind in my ears. I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest I’ve ever gone on a board, and though the course couldn’t be described as challenging, I feel like taking it at speed developed something within me, building my confidence until I would crouch so low on the board during the straight-aways as to be able to skim my glove across the snow.
Mountain Days 7, 8
P.S. I'm behind the times. This should have been posted immediately following the weekend of March 6-7th, when we went to Teine.
all of vancouver just threw rolling papers and yoga mats at you for saying mountains being close to metropolises is perplexing....good for you, they need something to do in vancity since hte olympics are over and they return to being "misunderstood"
ReplyDeleteThe difference is, my friend, that at the height of winter Sapporo's mountains actually have snow. Hell, they'll likely have snow all the way to the end of March.
ReplyDeleteVan seems to be lucky to get a light dusting on Cypres in the deepest, "coldest" parts of February.
And while you Torontonians will be working on your tans and getting out those dusty, sensible shoes this weekend, I have another date with a mountain. As I look out my school window this morning, I see a scene not unlike what I was witnessing mid-February:
White. White. And more white.
Here's hoping it lasts forever...or at least until May :)