This weekend started off in a rush and very unorganized. From forgetting my gloves and helmet at home, to Xander breaking his wrist on the second day. The beginning of this day we started out arriving late, but made it in time for takeoff. The ride up was awesome and the view, with no clouds, or any wind at all, made the top a memorable one. Not to mention the ride down. I used to #GoProMaxLens mod for this trip. This is an awesome mod, but its biggest downfall is that if anything gets on the lens it shows up as this weird dots. And during this trip, the cold snow plus the warm sun heat caused a fog spot inside the lens that I couldn’t get rid of.
This is the last snowboarding session of the season so I made it a bit longer. Enjoy.
Timestamps:
0:00 – 2:38 Registering
We had to register and talk to M’s Ski School and Guide the day before so that we would have slots on the CAT Tractor. As space fills up quickly, espcially for this very sunny day, we got to go in an talk to the all the guides, and joke around before going over the details. If you have a season pass to any of the Miyagi side of the Zao mountain range, you get almost half off for the tour and equipment, as noted in the video. If you have your own equiptment, then all you will pay for is the ride up. Or you can hike up, which take about 3 hours.
2:39 – 3:07 CAT Tour
On the ride up, our tour guide went over some safety information and told us about the avalanche that had occured on a nearby peak. He also pointed out some other mountain slopes that people don’t frequent as often and some that people do depending on their skill level. As you can see when I show the outside of the window.
3:08 – 3:57 The Peak
At the peak, we were given about 30 minutes to take pictures, rest and prep for the ride down. As there was almost no wind and an amazingly bright sunny day, I was able to fly my drone, the DJI Mavic Mini to the crater. Today was full of mistakes and I didn’t hit record when I flew into the crater. The temperature at the top and in the air was much colder so the little drones battery died really fast. But I was still able to get some awesome shots.
3:58 – 6:31 Ride Down
We did the ride down in a couple of sections. This first part, the guide explains the the weather had been warming up quickly over the last few weeks causing for some unstable snow. He pointed out that the white parts were the soft powder and that was where we should aim for, and the yellowish brown areas were ice, which we should avoid as much as possible. There had been a small snowfall the day before giving us about 5 inches of snow on top of the ice, so we couldn’t see the ice on some of the areas.
6:3 2 -8:16 Tree run
The second section, he took us through a more technical tree area, which was not a course, but it was by request of me. Of course I ran into several trees on this second part, but it was super fun to do it and looking back at the footage of it was hilarious to watch back.
8:17 – 8:44 Ambulance
On our final decent, we noticed how hot it had gotten during the day, causing the soft snow to turn into slush or melt away the soft snow into ice. We were down to the last hour or so of the resort being open when Xander took a jump a little too fast and broke his wrist. I had fallen right before he did this so I was not able to see how he fell, but from the time he was able to get to the lodge to get help and then time the paramedics arrived was about 30 minutes. He is healing nicely with a clean break. Should be as good as new in a couple of months.
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Gear:
GoPro Hero 9 Black
GoPro Hero 9 Max lens mod
GoPro El Grande extension pole
DJI Mavic Mini Drone
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Music: Epidemic Sound
Hallman – Heard the stars
Hallman – The Drama
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