JAPAN SLED MISSION 2016
Sled Japan? Sure- why not? Had to give it a go! Japan does have the best snow on the planet and I needed to sled there.
How could I make this work was the question. It had been a two year process just to find people who ride there. I’d been asking my pro snowboard friends if they or anyone they know actually snowmobile over there. Seems like the sled-ski/snowboard thing has not really taken off over here or just hasn’t been discovered.
So I went to the next best thing – Facebook. My good friend and pro snowboarder Shin had been inviting me to come check Japan out for years, so I already had an excuse to go, but wanted a snowmobile hook-up. Shin didn’t have any, so I reached out to my new friend Junichi Ezaki. I found Junichi on Facebook and friended him after seeing that he had bought one of Chris Burandt’s sleds. He had watched the Jackson Hole Hill Climb 20 years ago on VHS and was hooked and wanted to get a piece of the action.
Junichi has been in the business of importing sleds from the USA to Japan since 2001. Taking orders from friends and clients, he tracks down the proper sled, buys it and gets shipping containers to haul across the pond to Japan. He was also the first person to introduce Japan to Klim outerwear, HPS, Easy Ride Suspension and Boondocker Turbos. In 2011 he met Chris Burandt and brought back his sled to Japan.
