Today was our final day in Hirafu at the Niseko Snow Resort. We had decided the previous day to extend our equipment hire for the final day, given our increased competency with the snowboards, and that we’d purchased four day lift passes each. We had another late start owing to grabbing a few late drinks the previous night.
At approximately 10:30 we started to get ready for the day, eating a late breakfast and getting geared up for the day’s boarding. We were up at the chairlifts at around midday, and decided to meet at the gondola at 1:30pm to head for lunch. Toni and I opted to continue practicing on the Boyo run, next to the Holiday I chairlift (a green run).
View of the gondola
We had about three or four runs with mixed results, mostly good, including getting some footage on camera. By the time 1pm loomed, Paul and Will had returned from the peak and we all met up and took the gondola to the top. The summit has a number of awesome runs, as well as a number of restaurants and other attractions.
Here we ate a brief lunch (for about one hour) which was Salmon Roe & Rice (for me) and Katsu Don (for Toni). After lunch, Will split to do a black run whilst Paul, Toni and I elected to do a green run (“Holiday”) which was a beginner/intermediate run with some steep sections. It took us a while, on foot, to locate the start of the run, and then we began a most precarious decent.
View at the mountain summit
The initial part of the run was challenging, and we were playing it very cautiously, trying to avoid any nasty spills. The track merged with another in a Y fashion, and we had a fairly steep right hand turn which led across a narrow section to an embankment. I managed it easily enough using J-turns and S-turns, whilst Toni employed the “falling leaf” technique.
Once we had cleared the tricky section, the track was more or less a bit windy, with few downhill sections. Toni had a very nasty spill about half way and she was immobile for a minute or two. Eventually she got up and we continued, though once we had passed the (overly) flat section, she wisely walked down the mountain (to avoid the risk of any further injury).
View from the half pipe, above the Boyo run
At 4:30pm, Toni left to return to the Hostel to grab our boots whilst Paul, Will and I did a final run on the Boyo run. This was undoubtedly my best run of the past four days, no spills and a controlled fast descent with plenty of good turns and traversals. What a nice way to finish the four days on the snow.
We returned to the pro shop and Will and Paul swapped for snowboards (they are planning lessons soon) whilst we headed back to the hostel to pack. Later that night we had dinner at JoJos, (near the way to the east village) where I had a chili burger and chicken wings 
At around 10pm we called it a night, and prepared for our 4am wake up and commute to the train station. Our final layover is in Tokyo before a late afternoon flight to Shanghai, and hopefully a late train to HangZhou.