I was a man on a mission and headed directly to the Corolla. It must have been a pretty fresh arrival because it was out front. Quite a bit of it was already scavenged, and the couple days between when I first saw it, more was gone, like the windscreen. Dang, that makes things a little more funky because its open to elements and the weather is rainy.  Dang, I’m thinking I should invest in one of those compact cordless impact drivers. Although all the fastners came out easy, it still took me an intense 1 1/2 hours of wrenching to net me the heater core, controls, driver window regulator, interior trim bits. I know I missed some bits, but I was running out of time, and hungry. But it was pretty productive, I maybe could have haggled on price, but I figured getting out of there forking over $100 and a 10mm socket that rolled under car was good for all the bits.

And then I went back to Aloha Stadium to go race! Which was quite amusing as the weather was quite rainy there.

I’m pretty pooped now, I think I’ll go have me another beer. And sorry no pics, too busy!

The skies darkened and the wind picked up and new snow began to fall.  I had expected a normal Niseko ice-krunk weekend, but the developing storm on Friday afternoon laid down a good layer for Saturday.  The bottom was still krunky on Saturday, but the upper areas were soft, and the base layers were not icy, since the temperature had stayed below freezing.  It was bitingly windy though.  Sunday morning brought the beautiful sounds of front-end loaders clearing the streets and parking lots, so up the mountain for the last day I went, finding the typical “fake powder” riding  at the lower levels with 10cm of fresh concealing a mogully death ice base.  The topside however was very nice, with three days of accumulated new snow.  It was still typically windy though, and although the user level was surprisingly low, everything got ridden out pretty quickly.

Getting on the bus at 14:00, the sky was clear blue, and the weather warm.  The conditions progressively deteriorated returning to Sapporo, with a light flurry at Nakayama-touge, and a full-blown blizzard in town.  Just from the time I left my lodging to go to Tokyu Hands, get some soup curry for dinner and return, 8cm fell outside the doorstep.  If I was more hardcore, or didn’t have other priorities, I’d catch the 07:30 bus to Kokusai and ride until 15:00 and get on the direct bus to the airport and catch my domestic connector at 18:00.  I know Kokusai will be freaking off the hook tomorrow.  Maybe next time – I have some manga shopping to do tomorrow.

Good night.

Hana hou? I sure as heck hope not! And I am sure not going to give them another chance! 1 out of 4 raving mad hungry monkeys (Moe “I want some cake” anyone?) because the food was decent for what you expect from a place like this, but the delay was simply unacceptable.

Just minutes before us, he had taken the second jump and landed badly, OTB, and into the dirt with his shoulder. He was now collected enough that we helped him up, and figured he could walk it. Thankfully it was mainline so the hike out was not too bad and easy to push two bikes. We made it out to the parking lot, and considering everything, Joe collarbone (yes, his name really was Joe) was in pretty good spirits. He was able to joke around. We helped load up his and kids bikes and made sure he was ok. He had already called his wife, who conveniently, or maybe not, heads the ER at St. Francis. He called for an ambulance since he wasn’t sure if he could drive. It looked like things were under control, so we gave him our best wishes and headed back for the trails.

We’d eaten some time, and things like this tend to make you a bit gun shy, so we decided to make it one run. We dropped into dumps, which again I was finding pretty sketchy. My semi-knobby rear was all over the place. Just as we came to the pause at the drop into the wood bridges of lower Dumps, we heard the ambulance, so we knew Joe was going to be taken care of. It was down to Dumps we dropped. I was scrubbing a lot of speed, being pretty cautious. I caught sight of someone who said something to someone out of sight which diverted my attention so I detoured around the rock jumps near the end of Dumps. We climbed back up to Mainline. The sun was blazing but getting low in the sky so was finding riding into the making for some challenging visibility. Turning off into the cover of Tacos was better. Continued through the twists down Ant Hill. Then headed down to the exit of Agave and took the Tank exit. From there it was onto the short section paralleling the concrete road, which was as sketchy as always. A brief rest at the concrete road, and then we finished the trail out. It was a decent ride, but the earlier events had kind of muted the feel of the ride. Thankfully all was good, and the kid was going to have a story to tell all his buddies at school tomorrow!