I’ve ridden a lot of different lifts over my time as a skier, from stand-in cage lifts in Italy, funicular railways in France, covered chairs in the US to the unique rope tows of New Zealand. But this year in Japan I had a whole new experience in lift riding.

We arrived at the small ski field of Seki Onsen in the Myoko region of Japan, on a tip-off that the field was a snow magnet which didn’t get a lot of ski traffic. It had been snowing heavily the night before and was still dumping as we got to the bottom chair lift.

I immediately took a shine to the place. It had that laid back feel of a NZ clubfield that is hard to find elsewhere in Japan. The lifties at the bottom were not your normal Japanese lift operators – they were fizzing with the excitement of the powder fiends around them and you could tell that they had had a few runs for themselves already.

As we started to load the old school double chair at the bottom, a few skiers pulled in from their first run proclaiming: ‘Wow, it’s too deep to ski!’. This is not a statement your average Kiwi skier computes. It was like a red rag to a bull in our minds, and meant it was going to be epic – too deep to ski? Ha!

Ten minutes later and, amazingly, they were right. Although it was a steep pitch, the build up of snow formed a bow wave in front of you that slowed you down to a surreal slow motion pace. Then, as soon as the pitch lessened over a roll or dip, you ground to a halt, shortly followed by your slough and boom. You were cemented in place, waist deep. This freakish experience continued for a few runs until traverse lines and run-in tracks had been established and you could keep your speed up.

We had arranged with the locals to help them dig out the top lift, and around noon we got the call to head over to the bottom station to start clearing the 1.5m of snow that buried it. After a solid hour on the sled shovels, the bottom deck and chairs were visible again. My next thought was, “How was someone going to get up to the top station to clear it?” This was answered pretty quickly as one of the excited lifties ran into the hut and cranked the lift on. It creaked, groaned and juddered for a minute as the motor struggled to pull the chairs buried at the top station through the snow, but then it lurched into action and sped up as the chairs up top broke free. A whoop, a holler and a high five later and the lifties were ready to load the chair.

They explained that it wouldn’t be open to the public for a while, but since we had helped in the clear up we could ride up with them now. They grabbed their boards and jumped on the lift with them under their arms, shouting back something about no skis on the lift. The remaining liftie confirmed that because there was so much snow, we would have to ride the lift in our boots with our skis on our laps.

Easy, I thought as I eagerly hopped on the little single seater lift, but it quickly became apparent that this was no state of the art chair. There was no safety bar, no side bars and not much of a back to it either. It was really more of a tray than a chair, but the sight of the fresh, untracked snow below me soon took my mind off the lift’s inadequacies and I drifted away into a dream state as I imagined the run I was about to ski.

I jumped from my mesmeric state to the sound of screaming voices and looking up I realised I was only a couple of pylons from the top. The screaming voices were the lifties at the top shouting something about standing up. Initially I was confused and unfazed, but as I got closer I realised from their frantic arm waving that they were serious – they wanted me to stand up on the chair and surf it into the top station. Easier said than done with skis and poles in hand, clumsy ski boots and the fact that I was sitting on a plastic tray. I grabbed the metal arm above my head and pulled with everything I had but I was still struggling to get a grip. Then the top station became a bit clearer in front of me. The chairs were going in at ground level and passing through a narrow corridor of snow before popping out the other side. I really needed to stand up. Another huge heave and this time, with the added motivation of not wanting my legs smacking into the snow bank, I was up and surfing into the top station of the lift, standing on the chair. Someone grabbed my skis and I jumped to safety.

I then had to quickly struggle through the snow getting into position with the shovel to clear snow for the next arrival. The two guys behind me managed to surf in too and by then we had enough snow moved that the rest of the crew could stay seated, although they still needed to extend their legs out straight, hand over their skis and do a commando style roll off.

It’s not often that the lift ride up is more memorable than a powder ski down but this was an exception. Unique and slightly insane; Japan just never stops astounding me.

the Chair – Seki Style

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Words by Neil Kerr

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