A group of six snowboards planned to hike Japan’s Mt. Kurodake on the north island of Hokkaido to cap off the 2009 season of snowboarding, but when a storm came and they got lost, their plans changed according to a story told by Chris Holmes to the Times Online. His first quote kind of explains the situation.
“I’m a relatively inexperienced snowboarder so I didn’t want to go on,” Mr Holmes, 34, told The Times from his home in Hokkaido where he is still trying to get feeling back into his icy cold feet. . . Three of the group continued on to the peak and returned safely to base camp later that evening. But the other six who descended earlier were less fortunate. . . The men and women from New Zealand, Australia and Holland became so lost and disorientated trying to navigate their way down the steep mountainside they were forced to dig a snow cave and sleep huddled together on a bed of pine leaves as the temperature dropped below zero.
Another lesson in backcountry snowboarding from the “inexperienced.”
[Link: Times Online]
