The Life of Sloth

February 2008 - Posts

• Rafting the Rangitata

  After a great weekend with the Colonel and Yo here in Christchurch (barbie + booze, farmers' market, England vs NZ ODI, curry, hill walking and fush n chups on the beach), time to cool off with a day's whitewater rafting. Rangitata Rafts is a couple of hours drive south, then inland towards the Main Dividing Range (look here). Stunning scenery as always - lots of this was used in Lord of the Rings. Rocked up to the campsite just before sunset, Colonel getting the barbie on the go. Awesome selection of meat, salad, breads and booze. All eaten in front of the hungry backpackers and their pot noodles . Bacon  Now, I'd just like to clear up this damn bacon situation once and for all. On Saturday morning we purchased some rather good bacon from the farmers' market, all of which was divided out equally. Yes, there was plenty to go around. Yes, I got my fair share. Some new evidence was however brought to the table about that bacon incident - it seems that Mr King had another packet in his eskie all the time . Whatever, anyway, now that we've all had our fair share we've agreed to close the matter once and for all.   GnarlyRafters   As always, Alan Davis popped round for breakfast, wish he wouldn't wake us up so early. Didn't get cracking (plenty of crack being sold) until around 11am though; after a quick early lunch, on with the briefing. Getting into the wetsuits was a bit of a mish, involving Sloth doing some sort of star jump while the Colonel held the sides. Drive up to the start point was stunning, got into our group with Ranna as guide. First 30 mins or so was safety briefing (they're big on that) and a couple of Grade 2 rapids. Surprisingly for summer, the river was pretty high at 135 cumecs. I think their cut-off level is 150 and they'd not been able to be out for a couple of days. Seeing as it's mountain / glacial run-off, yes it's damn cold! Right then, now then, on with bigger and bigger rapids, stopping before each Grade 5 to check it out. I think the photos explain it better than words. Awesome awesome awesome! How shocked do I look in some of those?!?!     Jump Rock Further downstream there's a 6 metre and a 10 metre rock you can jump off. Sloth straight in for the smaller one, but no chance of getting me on the 10 metre job - just look at the face on one of the girls in our group who did it!!     After 2.5 hours on the river, it was back to the lodge for hot showers and a barbie. Rangitata Rafts - highly recommended, love their work. Team Roblanda then headed inland towards Fairlie / Tekapo while we went back to ChCh (stopped off to check out some HUGE Totara trees). That'll do for a day off work then. Back to you  Posted Feb 28 2008, 07:55 AM by le_sloth with 3 comment(s) Filed under: New Zealand, camping, food, roadtrip

• Rusutsu

  No no no, it can't be time to get up already?! Yep, 6:30am and these brothers were up, off the futons, chuck everything in the board bags, nail some breakfast and out the door. Of course we left behind the GnarlyBoarders calling card, nice big sticker up on the wall. Think Jamroll may have got the wrong idea here and left them some stripes as well. Outside into the crisp (damn cold) morning air where Dillon and Toby were packing up the beast of a 4wd van. So we're fitting 7 of us in there with all that kit? Alrighty then, rock-paper-scissors it is. I won, but not sure whether I got a good deal on the seat or not really. Here we go, 2...3...4...ROADTRIP!!   Hour and a half's drive and we pile out at Rusutsu Mountain Resort. Straight in, no kissing, no time for Alan's legs today. There's freshies to be had. Now they're not overly-keen on you going off piste here, but as long as you don't try to drop in right under their nose (that was you, Mr G, right under the lift station!!) you'll be right. Straight away we're farming down the pow, off over the other side and there's plenty more to be had. In fact, as most of the locals obey the rules, there were freshies all day. Awesome bit at the top of one of them under a closed chairlift - just had to watch your head if getting any airtime!   A gourmet lunch for Mr G at this one - what was it now? Corn dog (shit on a stick), chicken nuggets and other randomness. Whereas I went for the (safe??!) option of a curry. 40-15. Rode through till around 2:30, finishing off with a couple of epic runs under another gondolage and out alongside a reservoir. Definitely wouldn't want to fall in there. Turns out some of those inspiring bits from the Japan section of Saturation were filmed here, right where we rode!! Get in. Plenty Rusutsu photos here.   Everyone back in the beast-van, off to Sapporo for an awesome sushi-train meal. This one was a double-decker with another whole line going the other way. Gets complicated in there. Too complicated for Michaela, who managed to pick up one of the plastic sample dishes and tried eating that. D'Oh! Well clearly she was well on the way already, thanks to Sake in a milk carton being passed round the van. Seico-Mart - bonkers Japanese supermarkets kept us entertained for ages. Booze is so, so cheap here. Litre of gin (good stuff) for 7 AUD anyone? Right, we'll have G+Ts in the van-beast then. Damn was Michaela hammered by the time we eventually got to Furano. Watch out for bears and foxes up that way too. Outside at 10:30pm it was -16c, inside it was probably +35c. Still, time for a quick couple of warm sakes before taking Alan home to bed.   Posted Feb 18 2008, 07:57 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, roadtrip, Japan, Winter 2008

• Niseko Day 3

  All of this is going to have to be from my wrecked memory as we never got round to writing any more updates while in Japan. Stuck between booze, hair and Arun Davies, so nothing gets done. Anyway, here goes... Oh I remember this one! Started off fairly sunny again I think, so rode over towards Strawberry Fields area. One run and Arran Davies needed some coffee. Like everything else over here, it's in a can and comes out of the vending machine. Strangely enough it tastes great too. Well by the time we got out of the cafe area, Mr Dumpster was in full swing and nailing down big fat flakes. Tracks covered over before too long, stopped for a bit then he carried on all afternoon and night. Myself and Mr Jermaine found plenty of untracked pow off the back of "The Legend of Shibiyama", bit of a hike back out but well worth it. This led us on (accidentally) to Blueberry Fields - an awesome bit of tree riding that we ended up hitting all afternoon. Genius in there, neige getting deeper all the time. Last lifts (4 of, including the one-man chair that we could barely even see it was snowing so hard!) back over to the Hibashiyama side. Thought we'd have a look again at the very first run we did - hiked up the access track, no tracks at all! Farmed on down from there into sweet knee-deep pow, then right down to the Prince Hotel.   Time for some night-riding action for these brothers. Love that, belt it up and down in the new neige, barely anyone else up there. Got a video of that. Finally rocked back to the Black Diamond Lodge around 7pm for our farewell dinner, meet our new guide, Toby. And then the wigs came out. And the tap pants. And far far too much Jagermeister.  Then we can't remember what happened next, but Jarmarly ended up with a head full of shaving foam and asking whether Gary was dressed for bed (also "I don't want to f*ck you Gary" was mentioned.).   Posted Feb 15 2008, 03:59 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, Japan, Winter 2008

• Time to hike a volcano

  Hang on though, was it a volcano? Or was that over the other side? I dunnno, anyway we hiked up Anapurri today, got damn froid up there, but well worth it for the long long ride down. Dropped off some big lip into powder, off down a gully / natural pipe right to the bottom. Sickness. Sick, dog.   Another farm through that lot, then off in search of beef curry to prepare us for the afternoon's tennis. 30-40 in the 4th game today. Plenty of slow lobs over the net. Strawberry fields was pretty tracked but still time for the little boys to play in the snow. [oh thanks jarmarl, second straight vodka of the night, that should sort it.] Got ourselves colder than needed on the cold side, so headed to the warm side. Now there's an idea. Alain Davis - thanks for your legs on the last run. Back in time for turbo beer and hot tub while the sun goes down. Now we're farming. right time to hire the backcountry gear for 2moro///     Posted Feb 07 2008, 09:49 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, Japan, Winter 2008

• I prefer dogs

  Welcome back once again. Now we're farming. We really are. Had to get the Massey out today as dumpy had left 40cm or so over night for us to plough. No idea where we've been, or where we're going, but there's been plenty of faceshots, plenty of pillow-biting and plenty of "Sloth, where are you?". Hot damn. Lightest driest neige we've known.   So come on dance with me Michael. Right, then. Right then. Right. Then. Let's go get some dinner. p.s. thanks for arranging the massage chair, that's sorted my aging back right out. p.p.s. keep me burning till the break of day. Sing hosanna, sing hosanna, sing hosanna to the king of kings. ppps dotcom. jarmarl is not supposed to be near computer machines. pas bon,. pest. Posted Feb 06 2008, 10:09 PM by le_sloth with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, Japan, Winter 2008

• Tokyo Street Fighting

  Right then. There's been a few of them.So there we were in Tokyo for a couple of days. Check in to our penthouse hotel room. Now that was awesome. Electric everything. Bonkers toilet we just couldn't figure out. Too many buttons. Weird getting warm water sprayed up the a-hole. Farmed out sushi by train, yakitori, weird breakfasts, weird everything. love the food, love the beer, love the sake. Don:t recommend travelling to Hokkaido all day with a hangover like this though. Ah yes, so that brings me back to last night. Starting off with a few beers with sushi, off to Roppongi for Abbey Road but closed for private party. Gutted. Off to a hexagonal fishtank of a bar for a couple of emergency shits. Back to near hotel again, Roppongi just a rip-off. Into sake bar, not sure what we were doing at first, but needless to say by the end of the night we'd had photos with everyone, hats were on, sloth doing his special dance while far too much awesome sake was drunk. Don:t remember leaving that place, next thing I know Sloth's downstairs in the hotel bar in his pants. Yes. Now look what you've gone and done, Jarmarl! Alain in control of the whole situation. Thanks for leaving gin and tonic by bedside. That was great first thing this morning. Have done some other things too, like praying for poudre in a shrine, checking out a big park, le babyfoot in Burton store. Oh yes, and some rather special t-shirts, details of which will be available soon. Noodle soup. Oh yes. Here's all the photos. Sugi and her old guitar Well it didn't take us any time at all to find Sugi and her old guitar - in fact, she was staying just around the corner from our hotel. Must've been fate.   Bonkers Toilets    The end but not quite. there's a foot of fresh waiting out there and dumpy's still spreading his love. Posted Feb 06 2008, 12:11 AM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, Japan, Winter 2008

• Japow here we come!!!

  Hard to believe the day has finally come. Sloth and Jarmarl are ready, primed and going to farm out the deep white stuff! Be ready for some stories of the chaos in Tokyo (Sushi, Sumo Stables, Karaoke and Sake. All with some Fancy That thrown in of course!). Then on Tuesday night we're off to Hokkaido in search of the neige. We've got 4 nights in Niseko, riding there as well as Rusutsu. 2 nights in Furano - riding one day there and one at Kamui. Then finishing up with 2 nights in Sapporo, riding 1 day at  Kokusai and 1 at Teine. Also taking in the Sapporo Big Air (which has a 10 million Yen prize pool). Unfortunately we're just going to miss the Furano "Pulling of The Horse" race (teams race each other pulling a horse on a sled around a course). Here's what's waiting for us: Furano, Saturday 2nd February 2008, 8:25AM Weather conditions:     sunny brisk morning. Upper mountain is covered in cloud. New snowfall:     5cm Snow depth:     Summit: 190 Yesterday was the million-dollar day here at Furano. If you had paid a your life's fortune to ski snowboard here yesterday, you would have been well pleased. It was just run after run especially off Kuma Otoshi where you thought, "if I had a film crew, I would look just like the powder video stars do!". Today is another blue-sky morning. With a few centimenters overnight there has been 5cm on the mountain. There is still plenty of deep fresh out there. Try Panorama, Challenge, Link and Kuma for your fixes. Niseko, Saturday 2nd February 2008, 12:25PM Weather conditions:     Sunny early, cloud developing later. New snowfall:     10cm (Official) 15cm (Observed) Snow depth:     270cm (top); 160cm (base) Yesterday was another fantastic day, even better than the day before. The whole mountain was deeply covered in super light powder and the skies were blue for most of the morning. Annupuri was the pick of the bunch but even the lower forrest areas had an incredible amount of cover. Today is not much different although there isn't quite as much fresh cover as yesterday. The higher areas will definitely be the best place to ride today. The avalanche report is noting 15cm of fresh cover and moderate winds at the peak.   For anyone else heading out to Europe, hope you get plenty! farm on, ride safe and don't forget the donuts Sloth x  Posted Feb 02 2008, 02:49 PM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, roadtrip, Japan, Winter 2008