Currently sat on the layover heading home somewhere between 20 hours of airtime reminising back to a wild week in Niseko, Hokkaido flicking through my little fujifilm cam that holds all the memories.
The first memory that comes to mind after a decent length journey from London - Hong Kong - Tokyo - Sapporo - Niseko was the very next day, the official first day for the Swatch Nines and we hear the course is closed due to high winds and zero visibility; not a good start. I catch photographer Jonas Gasser at breakfast featuring our first and definitely not last fair share of rice, noodles, sushi and other things to identify. Once full we decide let’s just go up and check it out, maybe it’s not that bad up there… next thing I know we’ve found the Hirano bros Kaishu and Ayumu, Takeru Otsuka, Lyon Farrell and one of their friends appearing through the fog. I’d got in late the night before but these boys had been at the Phoenix Club (a private bar kept open specially for the Nines all week with only free drink tokens taken behind the bar, which there was endless supply) with bad weather forecasted the opening night was permitted to send!
The boys were up though and fired up to shred, all with a can of Sapporo Classic in hand. The Hirano bros friend may have come straight from the bar, as he was only wearing a pair of jeans, a thin sweater (no t-shirt) and Kaishu’s beanie whilst riding Ayumo’s board, no gloves and just freezing his ass off. Lifting his sweater up to reveal “fuck up” and other drawing all over his body having been attacked with a pen in the bar the night before. Oh and Kaishu had his Burton board with the full length rail system step up with both bindings set all the back for the day, so I knew I was in for a cracking day no matter the weather.
They didn’t disappoint, one of the funniest days riding in quite some time.
The following day was game time, the sun was out, the call for a 4am wake up and get the sunrise shoot over Mt Yotei was on. At 4am the text came in, the weather wasn’t that clear yet and the winds were still high, so I took an extra hour kip, but the majority of the riders were up there and ready. Once the sun was up the sessions were on. The huge quarter pipe was the first on the tick list, being further down the course the wind was less brutal and the early risers started to get planting, flipping and getting some airtime.
Then the volcano session commenced, which may have been the most picture perfect setup I’ve witnessed. A perfectly shaped imitation of the volcano getting boosted by rider after rider with Mt Yotei sat right there in the background.
The Nomadik team were in town to check out the set up as well as shoot a little project with us so we met up with Kohei Kubo, Rei Shimasaki, Slash Bomb (never got his real name), his bro … and illusively Kazu Kokubo was there, but it took a couple more days before any actual set eyes on him, in true legendary fashion.
The boys took a few laps through the Nines set up but conditions weren’t ideal, so we headed for some side hits from the one other lift that seemed to be running on the mountain, finding some gullies and features to jib.
The following day promised another epic sunrise above Mt Yotei volcano so after another 4hr kip the alarm rang and we were up! This time it looked like it was going to be the one! We got up the gondola and straight onto the little two man chair servicing the behemoth set up, just to find ourselves in a small pocket of cloud, ah well, next time eh.
After another day of fairly clear skies with a sprinkling of high winds ripping around the mountain to avoid being blown over, the sun began to set and the night session commenced. A light show provided by Panasonic lit up the snow mini ramp, volcano and rail under the bridge top section and this might have been the best part of the week, mini shred!
That session pretty much closed out the riding that week with the weather coming in on the Friday where only the very brave strapped in to try stack a few more clips before the final day that was meant to be the public day where everyone puts on a show for the locals, but the weather was having none of it and that was unfortunately cancelled.
So what do you do when you can ride the following day, head back to the Phoenix Club for free drinks and karaoke. But first we had a banquet put on by the resort up the mountain where they played Japanese drums and a ceremonial display of a huge Tuna that once it had done a a lap of the hall was sliced up in front of us for the freshest sushi I’d ever eaten.
With the last day a right off we finally met up with Kazu and the Nomadik crew to shoot some lifestyle bits for our upcoming collaboration and then it was to the closing Gala party where many a shoe was drunk from and the live rider voted awards were announced. The results were so:
MVP: Cool Wakashima, Kaishu Hirano & Lane Weaver
New Nine: Lane Weaver
The Tube Award: Romain Allemand
Best Trick SNB: Lane Weaver & Cool Wakashima
Best Trixk SKI: Gen Sasaki & Elena Gaskell
Big thanks to the Nico and everyone at the Nines for putting on such an epic event and of course thank you for the invite!
Watch the official HIGHLIGHT EDIT here: