HOKKAIDO STORY!!!! For the real shredbums

None of it matters;
itchy, sternum tweaked, knotted kinks ruling neck, bitter olive purple stains under both big toes, mashed, matted, flattened shredlocks, knee like a water warped cellar door, skibum thumb, body begging, dense raging ragged heals, old injuries falling in the fruitful procession of my furious hounding imagination shutting up a wincing bellowing skeleton with hooting, hollering, bounding, rope ducking under meter tall nests of the lightest, driest, untouched, fluffy, fast, deep, cheap and steep - consistent nipple grazing lefts and rooster-tailing rights through glades, chutes, legal and illegal stashes, saying hell, here we are. Wallowing in the Japanese North Island of Hokkaido. Bouncing around the ridges of Furano. Dead centre. Right here, so far from everywhere.

Boom. Get out of bed espresso quick with your eyes still closed, apply shred gitchy long johns and shred pants to the knees and tall tee while the sleep from your eyes cracks and is swept away between this well-practiced hop on pop dance from foot to foot. Yank and delve deep. Proceed to lay high speed ripplers across the corderoy and hound at the stashes till eleven o clock.
At this time, for ten minutes only, patrol opens the gates of heaven and lets a few heads charge an unmaintained 600 meter section of perfectly gladed trees over the back of the summit gondola. Atypical from the incredibly dense and unshredable forests of central Honshu with its littered platoons of bamboo, this section is ripped wide open. Trees are spaced like pylons arching up and over head, nodding wise against the wind while a rare yuki pounds.

But this isnt snow Ive seen before. Light to the point of gassy, a delicacy of gossameriness. I watched wind gusts slice brick sized slabs of stockpiled snow off perfect white beanbag chairs nestled high in the trees and not fall to the ground with a SPOOF. No, not in the least. These particular chunks of snow idled in the air, some as large as ten inches in diameter, politely insisting that the smaller more unified flakes go ahead as they chose to dance drunk around the branches, rise up, feather dust lacksidaisically about until the mood stuck them to collapse among friends like a leaf on a shuddering pond. A silent storm of these lazy bricks, and fat flakes from the heavens to boot. Furano at it`s finest.

So, shred, repeat, shred, repeat, shred, repeat etc and the main road snowed over, we once again ignored clicking out and rolled down the sidewalk toward our hostel with stupid boner grins on. A modest sunset threw pink paint on untouched bowls opposite us as I remembered our host gave us free hot sake coupons for the igloo bar across the road. I sighed a many faceted sigh and stepped out of my skis.

Resting and reflecting in the scorching waters of our free hot spring in the basement of a 30$ a night HOSTEL, slugging on Sapporo and easing ourselves in, our twin aluminum tall cans clacked cheers to the brewers and other manic alchemists. To all balance. To luck. To Ullr. To the benefits of blind faith we relied on reaching out here via plane, innocent whims, bus, train, the words of strangers. I wondered how many apres ski hours around the world have been furnished with these thoughts:

THAT was the best day of my life. The lines I linked between such perfectly tight trees and screaming in unabashed synchronization with my bro bouncing beside me. Turns that test your vision. Surfing. Its days like these that make you feel invincible. Eternal? Finishing a line with bones intact, however loud they whine, intact nonetheless; it`s either motivation for another chairlift ride or a courageous romp, skis on of course, into death. To be but a part of the snow that will melt, the trees that will die and (with hibernating fuck-off Hokkaido bears included) the intimate and wild silence of nowhere close to anywhere at all.

Big thanks to our Genki Kiwi guide Tawny (like the port). He jack rabbited oh so nimbly bimbly. Until the chairs open again,

Ben Wannamaker