Forbidden forests, halos sanctified by the silence, the crows’ Flo Bastien and Nikolai Schirmer blossomed in the Japanese powder. With the angel in ambush, in a hypnotic dance began to take form through the woods and forests.
December 2016, I’m mountain biking on the trails above Chamonix, my lungs harshed by the smog that’s been choking the valley for weeks.
My Instagram feed is doing an amazing job as a pocket-sized billboard, incessantly feeding me stimuli to fuel my frustration; Whistler and Revelstoke here, Mammoth mountain and Mount Baker there, everyone stuffing themselves with powder, except us. Nikolai the Norwegian, who I’’m renting my friend room to, is in the same state as me.
So, one night while slumped in front of yet another report on TF1 about the lack of snow in resorts, like a junkie shooting a dose, I enter the last digits of my Visa card. Ahh, that’s better, here we go, Nikolai, Julien Lange and me on the plane bound for Myoko-Kogen in the Japanese Alps where conditions aren’t great for the moment, unless you happen to be touching down at the same time as the “snowmageddon” storm.
