Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Hakkoda- White Heaven on Earth

Around ONE METER of new powder snowed at Hakkoda this weekend. There were 50 cm of fresh powder on Sunday morning and 40 cm on Monday morning. The weather was good to us on Monday: -10 ℃, windspeed 11m/s and visibility 40%, but on Sunday it was pretty rough: -17 ℃, windspeed 22-25m/s and visility 5%. After the first gondola went uphill, one of Hakkoda` s staff rushed to the place where all the skiers and snowboarders were standing in line to announce that the conditions at the to are very bad and to be careful while coming downhill. And he was telling the truth. After we got up there, the gondola stoped for about 2 hours, until the windspeed lowered.
Anyway, this was the weather condition, but that didn` t stop us from heaving fun. 50 cm of powder is quite difficult to deal with when on flat ground, but when on steep slopes it`s "Heaven on Earth". It feels like you are floating on a big pillow, like you are driving a luxury car on a national road at 200 km/h. It feels so good.
On Monday I had to leave the mountain after the Gondola` s service had stoped.

On Sunday, new powder, another story. Don` t stop on fresh powder, avoid loosing speed on flat ground. If you stop you have to take your snowboard off, make steps with it so you can step on and actually swim until you reach some solid base so you can put your snowboard on again. It happened to me once while trying to take my camera out of the suit. I was trying to film the beautiful forest that was reaching to the ground, under the heavy snow that fell a night ago, and... it happened: Stopped and fell over :D . Got out of there soon, but I didn`t take the camera out again. Before that I managed to take some photos.

On the last part of course, the lowest part of it where the visibility is good I made these 3 clips.

Part 1- The Lowest part of the Direct Course



Part 2- In the forest before the steep slope



Part 3- Arriving at the Gondola Station



Nothing better than this!
Have a great week!

Mihai