Waking up to to snowy views…

On the Saturday the 10th of January we awoke by 7am to a lovely minus 12, feels like minus 13 degrees for our first morning in our cottage in Hakuba Valley. It was a cold start but it was going to be a lovely day. There was plenty of snow around and we had been assured there would be heaps out on the slopes.

The pile of snow next to our front door was growing. There was also a building under construction next door, so we enjoyed seeing how much snow was piling up on that each day!

Off to ski school….

We had a private group ski lesson booked in as it was about the same price as each of the 3 kids getting group lessons. The bonus of the private group lesson was we got picked up from our cottage and didn’t need to take the bus. The kids have never skied before. I skied a few times before I was about 7 years old, but couldn’t remember how to actually ski. Anto skied a fair bit as a kid and teenb but that was now a long time ago. Consequently, we were all classing ourselves as beginners and hoping to gain some skills during the morning. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had clear skies and nice crisp snow.

We were skiing at Iimori Goryu, but there are 10 resorts in Hakuba, all fairly close to each other with different level runs. Our instructor, Julia, was from Budapest and loved we’d visited her home town this time last year. Once we arrived at Iimori Goryu, our lesson started teaching us from scratch how to do everything. Even though Soren claimed he was an expert already from watching You Tube videos the previous day during our train journeys.

After about 45 minutes Julia was happy we could go up the chairlift to stop us having to trudge and up and down the hill with our skis. I was not super happy about this, but she went with me and I managed to not crash getting off. She also got me down the hill twice with minimal carnage. The kids were already zipping along pretty well, and Anto’s ‘muscle memory’ had him doing something resembling skiing!

I wasn’t confident on the lift or runs without an instructor but was happy that I’d managed a few basics and not injured myself yet. The kids had a great time and had also somehow managed to not get injured despite throwing themselves around.

Lunch and more snow time…

At the end of the lesson the kids voted for more skiing the next day so we booked another group lesson. I was feeling unwell still (the same virus I’d had since leaving Australia almost 2 weeks ago) so went off to the restaurant with Zinnia to get her some warm food and have a sit down.

Anto, Astrid and Soren were keen to try out their new skills and went and did some more practice on the beginner hill. It was a lovely sunny day and despite the freezing start it was now 6 degrees so we were taking off layers pretty fast.

The shuttle bus back to our cottage had a big gap from 12 to 3pm, and our lesson finished at 12.30 so I was stuck there til 3pm. Zinnia got a second wind after lunch so was then keen for more skiing and went and did some more practice with Anto and the 2 big kids while I watched and held everyone’s jumpers as I still wasn’t feeling good. Even if I wasn’t up for more skiing for the day the views were pretty good and I got to watch a lot of people skiing down hills and a few crashes, thankfully none of us!

Back to the warm…..

With luckily no injuries, but a few tired legs, we all head back on the 3pm (very packed) shuttle, which drops us literally outside our cottage. We were all glad to get the snow boots off. Our feet and legs had not yet been beaten into the appropriate shape for ski boots!

After warming up the kids were back out to play in the huge piles of snow at the cottage. Having spent time in the Swiss and Austrian alps during Winter, where there is plenty of snow, the amount of snow here in Hakuba was amazing. Especially as the village is at only 800m above sea level.

A Mexican dinner….

We decided to walk into Echoland (the nearest restaurant area) for dinner at a Japanese-Mexican restaurant that looked interesting. So far we hadn’t actually wandered around Hakuba Village that much and being the peak of ski season there were plenty of people around and a large variety of places to eat.

Everywhere gets busy so we’d even booked in advance, which was lucky as we were still seated at the bar. It was very good Mexican although everything in Hakuba is way more expensive than in the bigger cities, where we’d been able to eat at fairly reasonable prices.

Astrid had the look of death, as she did not want to share any of her food after a big day of burning up calories in the cold!

After the warmer day some of the snow had melted during the day in town and was now refreezing it was a bit of an icy walk back to the cottage! We were thankful for the grippy snow boots. There is so much snow though in Hakuba there is no danger of it all melting, and plenty was forecast for the next day.

I’d originally only hired my gear for one day, unsure if I was going to hate skiing. I’d decided I was keen to have another day of lessons and the ski gear hire place did not answer their emails so Anto had wander into town in the other direction to extend my ski hire, and got well and truly snowed on during his walk.

Time for more ski school….

Sunday 11 January

The big snow was coming! A massive snowstorm that was originally predicted to be more than a 1 metre dump had been forecast for days. The instructors all said it would be interesting to see if anyone could even get to the ski fields as that was a lot of snow in one go, even for here! In the morning it was grey and snowing lightly, it was predicted to get heavier from the afternoon.

It was about zero degrees today and grey. So while quite a bit warmer than we started out the previous day, it was far less sunny and nice.

We could only get an 8am group lesson, so our pick up was early today. Our instructor today was Renzo from the Netherlands. Sadly, Julia who we all liked from the day before had already been booked up for the day. We head off to Iimori Goryu again, to the same beginner runs as the day before.

The runs were pretty quiet when we arrived, and the chairlift on the beginner hill wasn’t yet running. After Renzo assessed our skills (or lack thereof for me) he took us to the other chairlift on the other green run. We’d skied down the bottom section of this run the day before but walked across, as the chairlift going up is tricker to get off. I wasn’t a fan of this but again survived and managed to not crash exiting the steeper chairlift.

After this though things didn’t go all that well and I’d lost all confidence after a couple of low speed slides and crashes. I took forever to get down the beginner slope, so the kids ended up skiing with Renzo. I was feeling rubbish and couldn’t balance with my ear infection and sore head, so ended up practicing with Anto walking up and skiing down the beginner hill.

Released onto the slopes….

It was pretty busy by the time our lesson today finished. Zinnia was having a great time but said her legs were sore, so was keen to go off to the restaurant with me for a break. Apparently despite being cold she needed a matcha icecream.

After his somewhat success at remembering how to ski the previous day, Anto had a higher level group lesson booked for himself for 10.30am so went off and did that. Astrid and Soren had joined me in the restaurant for some hot food and then decided they wanted to do more runs, to practice their new skills. They continued on the beginner hill, doing laps past Zinnia and I, while she made snowmen.

I decided I’d had enough for the day and needed to go back to the warm as I was not feeling well. Zinnia and I voted for the 12pm shuttle back to the cottage and Astrid and Soren went to meet Anto at 12.20 once his lesson finished and managed to be in the right place at the right time. They then got some lunch from the Japanese restaurant including red bean soup with mochi for Soren (which is very sweet) and Astrid and Anto some tonkatsu. This warmed them up enough for some more skiing.

Anto had been up a much higher chairlift in his lesson (still on a green run) and for some reason decided he’d take the kids up that with him. Astrid was terrified as this chairlift had no bar. Soren also had gone on his own in the seat behind. It’s lucky I didn’t know about any of this until they safely returned or I would have been having kittens! While going up the little chairlifts on the beginner run, Soren had already commented on how he doesn’t like ‘how you can just lift up the bar and jump out’ which is something Soren would do. Turns out the top of that run was much steeper and Astrid was not a fan! They did get down though unscathed.

Hanging out watching the snow….

Meanwhile Zinnia and I had returned to the warm of our cottage, and since I wasn’t feeling well she made me coffees and we watched a lot of youtube together while resting on the couch. It was now snowing very heavily and the snow was piling up on our skis. A good 10cm by the time the others returned.

It was very relaxing watching the snow flutter past our window!

The big kids had somehow missed Anto getting on the 3pm bus. There was no Wifi for them out on the slopes and Astrid had only managed to get enough Wifi once getting to the bus to let him know they were now waiting on the bus. But by the time he ran down to find them the bus left without Anto. The kids made it home, and I managed to message Anto and tell him they were back with me. As he had another hour to kill to the next shuttle he did some more skiing on his own. By now it was bucketing snow and we were wondering how much we’d get! Apparently it was a white out up the mountains.

All cold and tired and not keen on going out, Anto cooked dinner from our big fridge of supplies and we watched the snow as the sun set. Anto did have to venture out to return my ski gear as I’d decided I needed a couple of days rest to get better. My ear infection and cold had been getting progressively worse, and I was hoping to not spend the entire holiday sick.

Anto unfortunately couldn’t get a taxi or Uber (they all kept getting cancelled, probably due to the massive amount of snow falling). So he had a lovely 1.5 hours out walking around in the snow dropping gear and picking up supplies.

We did enjoy watching the snow falling and having cleared the porch at 8pm, it was piling up again quickly. We were wondering if we’d be able to open the door by the morning!

Up next….

Snow, snow a lot of snow! Plenty of skiing for the kids and Anto and some exploring of Hakuba.