Day two in Japan: a ‘bad’ powder day…

Warning: only read on if you are not the jealous type.

I’m in Furano, in central Hokkaido, Japan’s north island. Any Japan spods will know that it’s illegal to ski off-piste in Furano (and it’s not just one of those empty threats either – I know someone who did actually get arrested) but, and here I’m going to break the ordinarily firmly held rule of not bragging about things that other people can’t do themselves, we had special dispensation! Oh yes, we had an entourage of ski patrol, as excited as we were to have an excuse to sneak off through the trees.
I’m not very brave, so the first time they went I stayed on piste and met them at the bottom, but I recognised the pink cheeks and bright eyes, and gave it a shot, and how glad I am that I did! It’s pretty much impossible to hurt yourself, and although we were riding down an avalanche gulley I felt pretty safe with ski patrol all around. Frankly I forgot to think about that sort of thing at all, and just thought about feather-beds and flying dreams, soaring string sections and making a big fat mess of expanses of untouched powder.
Where can it go from here? Well, considering that our host, Saitosan, apologised for the state of the snow here, I guess we can expect good things…