by Sabine Walther

Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, Russia - We are all deep in thought as the roar of the helicopter’s engines takes us back to reality. Moving towards the take-off area, our hearts start beating faster. Like a lazy bumble bee the helicopter lifts off the ground and rises slowly. For a few seconds it seems to stand still in mid-air, then swings seemingly meaninglessly from left to right, before eventually deciding upon a direction in which it will take us. Happy to start a new adventure exploring the wilderness of the country ahead of us. And we are right in the middle of it.

My introduction to Japanese skiing took place roughly 27 years ago in front of a television set in Warren, Vermont, my hometown in the United States, and also home to Sugarbush Ski Area. My father, a transplanted Austrian who had emigrated to North America to become a ski instructor, had not yet adopted the American custom of watching lots of baseball and football (the American variety), and kept the TV set tuned to the coverage of the Sapporo Winter Olympics. I remember watching the skating and ski events and little else. It was not even until a few years later that I discovered that the Winter Olympics were in Japan. At the time that I watched them, I probably didn’t know what "Japan" was, anyway.