I assumed that "TUY TVTJ" was Japanese for Glen Plake but what and where was the "Big Volcano?" And by arriving on this rainy Easter morning in a land where colored eggs are as common as Coupe de Villes, had I already missed Plake's defining rite of Japanese passage?                   

Plake's note began to make more sense in the pink light of early dawn.  To the south, Yotei-san Volcano soared above Hokkaido's  meandering river valley, snow covered farms and forested hills.  Studying the long, snow filled chutes that dropped from Yotei-san's rim, I could understand why, after a week of waiting for the weather to clear, Plake picked Easter to climb the caldera's sheer north face.

Because the Japanese value conformity in work, loyalty to family, and modesty in dress you would think that Hokkaido would be the last place to look for Glen Plake.  And yet, in 1992 Japan imported 2.5 million pair of skis, this island nation boasts roughly 800 ski areas and Tokyo's famed Kanda district comprises three city blocks crammed with enough technicolor skis, boots, poles, suits and bindings to blind every skier from Colorado to California.

Sporting a two-foot blonde hawk and matching public persona, Plake is about as extreme you can get.  Plake's problem was, despite the fact he was burned out on sitting at ski shows and signing autographs, his contract still required a specified number of public appearances.  He wanted to spend more time skiing and thus approached K2 of Japan with the idea of meeting the public on snow.  K2 liked the idea and invited extreme skier Scot Schmidt and Lillehammer Women's Bumps Gold Medalist, Stina Lisa Hattestad to Niseko where they could interview and photographed by both a curious press and wide-eyed public.

Until the age of twenty-six, when the Japanese are so heavily invested in their jobs, career and family that they simply drop out of the sport, skiing offers Japan's youth a chance to trade the blues and blacks of universities and workplaces for the florescent spectrum of suits, boots and skis.  Best of all, it gives them a chance meet girls.  Taken in that context,  Extreme isn't an insult, it's high praise and incidentally, as bankable as one of Japan's Kobe cows.

     Accompanied by K2's Hide Tanaka, Scott Schmidt and Stina Lisa arrive the following noon.  Now thirty-two and dressed in his signature black and yellow North Face Extreme Gear, it has been eight years since Schmidt and Plake revolutionized ski movies in Greg Stump's "Blizzard of Aaahs." In the time since, Scot has appeared in dozens of movies and magazine articles.  Earlier this winter he worked as a ski stunt coordinator for Arnold Schwarzenegger's  "True Lies" and filmed with  Greg Stump in British Columbia's Lizard Mountains.  For the past two months, he has been trying juggle a remodel on his home with commitments to his sponsors.  Now with a new baby on the way, he hates to be away from his wife Terry and daughter Kali Ray--which may account for the fact that he has skied less than fifty days this season.    

         Aside from the fact that they are both superb skiers, Plake and Schmidt are very different.  While Plake thrives on being the center of attention and quickly dominates any ski or social setting, Scot rarely seeks the limelight.  Though funny and personable, Schmidt is quieter and more introspective than Plake.

Plake loves chasing Stina Lisa through Niseko's monstrous bumps but, due in part to recent arthroscopic surgery on his knee, Schmidt is at best cool to their tortuous thrash punk drop and bang duet.  While both men share a love of back country extreme, hot motorcycles and long skis, the most telling difference is Glen craves "BEEF" while Scot is a strict vegetarian.

The Japanese have fallen in love with Stina Lisa Hattestad.  With her tall, blonde beauty, brilliant smile, disarming candor and Olympic Gold Medal, she is just as much a star, and perhaps even more recognizable than the two men.   Americans may believe that Stina Lisa stole Donna Weinbrecht's bump medal, but the truth is Stina Lisa had been in the hunt since 1985 when she won the Junior Worlds.   

Scot admits he is looking forward to skiing with Plake but confesses that, since Plake tends to dominate most settings, he will have to work to avoid the role of silent side kick.  Schmidt is a beautiful skier, light on his skis, perfectly balanced in the air and where the Japanese might not always get Prake's humor, they are drawn to Schmidt's easy smile and natural reserve. In order to pen the definitive story on Extreme, reporters from the competing Japanese Bravo and Bob Ski Magazines fight to get Scot alone. They plan to explore a cliff band west of Niseko which is known as a high-risk avalanche area but, as soon as they settle on a time, the weather closes in and they spend next two days fighting alternating snow, clouds and fog. 

Because Japanese has no L sound, the hotel staff calls Plake "Gren Prake."  At first, I resist the pronunciation but in time succumb to it.  Mixing R and L is a natural for Prake who mercilessly teases Tanaka.  In Niseko's four person gondola he ventures,  "So Hide, I heard that Japan Airlines has a problem with luggage.  In fact, it loses lots of lost luggage......?" 

Glancing across at Plake, Tanaka innocently disagrees. "Rots of Rost Ruggage? No! I never hear this!"

"Yea, Japan Airlines loses lots and lots of lost luggage." Plake persists.

At Niseko, skiers treat the groomed runs as if they were safe harbors in a raging storm. And, if they do stray from the piste, speakers in the trees and lift standards warn them back.  For that reason, the resort's off-piste glades remain untracked for days after a storm creating some of, if not the best, tree skiing in the world.

On my first run in Japan, I followed the lovely Kimberly Plake under a four-foot restraining net, from where we dropped into an untracked bowl which closed out under the quad. 

“We've been skiing it all week," she assures me, arcing toward a cornice.

At lunch Schmidt and Stina Lisa order the Ramen soup, while Prake plays with Niseko's automated French fry machine.  For four hundred yen, or four dollars, the machine dumps fries into boiling oil then cooks, drains, salts and ejects most of them into a cardboard bowl.  Prake buys eight dollar’s worth of these greasy techno fries which he then sets next to Kimberly's bread, fruit and nuts.

"Eat up, honey," he says, laughing.

During his two weeks in Niseko, he has been adopted by the Swedish, Australian and Japanese ski bums who live for the back-to-back powder storms that roll in from Siberia.  Gathering strength above the Sea of Japan the storms dump meters of blue smoke powder on the off-piste glades.

I try to hang with Stina Lisa on the last run down to the Hotel Scot, but she dumps me. When I catch up with her, she asks if I'd like to go running.  Schmidt told me that she'd run him into the ground the day before, and though I hadn't trained all winter, in a burst of ill-advised machismo, I accept. 

The Hotel Scot sits at the top of a long hill which drops precipitously past a cluster of hotels, restaurants and curio shops.  Before the city heated the street, major storms would glaze the asphalt into a near vertical ice rink, with predictable and disastrous results.  Even today the street is lined with what look like glass fronted fire alarms filled with bags of sand. 

Twenty minutes later I meet Stina Lisa in the lobby where she asks if seven or eight miles sounds about right.  Settling into a distance eating lope she describes her home in Norway, her father who she runs with, how the medal has changed her life and how she needs some time away from competition.  I manage to hang with her until we reach the killer grade back to the ski area.  Stina Lisa surges away and when I catch up with her at the hotel she dismisses my apologies.  "I would be shocked if I could not run away from you." she says, which, after some thought, I take as a back handed compliment. 

Plake does not have to order at the Bang Bang.  Instead, the restaurant owner greets him by name and quickly sets plates of Kobe beef, sausage and dripping ribs on the table.  Stripping the savory meat from a wooden skewer, Prake sounds like an ad for the Beef Council of America. "Figure it out....." he pursues his earlier theme. "If you want strength what would you eat? A cabbage?  A broccoli?  Or a," and here again he raises his voice for effect, "A BULL!" 

"Face it," he says seriously. "Meat gives you power!"

The following morning a film crew arrives to shoot K2 Japan's 94-95 brochure.  The photographer has built a kicker off a cat track but the landing is into a field of frozen boulders.  Contemplating the chance they stand of tying their tendons into Easter bows, Glen, Scot and Stina Lisa shake their heads.        

"Gren, where you want shoot?" Tanaka finally inquires. 

A movie crew wants to film Stina Lisa and Glen skiing bumps. Glen rips a violent, mogul crashing run that leaves the crew standing in polite silence.   Prake is especially pleased with his performance until the director asks him to "No ski Mad Moguls. Please to ski Happy Moguls." Stina Lisa leads the next run while Glen chases her tails.  At first the two challenge each other, then relax and match turn for turn until late that afternoon when they drag a final contrail of snow past the camera.   

The following day  Glen, Scot and Stina Lisa are scheduled to appear at the Super Bump mogul contest. A gust of arctic air, however, has turned the bump course to blistered boiler plate and still nursing a sore knee, Schmidt takes a rain check on the icy moguls and glazed landings below the jumps.   Skiing a pair of 207s,  Prake camel humps the bumps and rips huge helicopters off the kickers.  Following his lead, an artillery barrage of competitors launch into spreads, twisters and daffys. Some land on their feet, many don’t, and the spectators soon learn not to stand too close to the restraining fences.        

Because Greg Stump's movies have barely penetrated Japan, few Japanese have seen Glen or Scot ski. 

In a land where imitation is a high form of flattery, Plake has imitators--kids that appear before him sporting black, glossy mohawks. None are as blatant as the Japanese mogul competitor who on the basis of a blonde hawk and an effort to copy Glen's air moves, has acquired a number of strong sponsors.  At first Glen thought it was funny, but the act got old and now he refuses to give me his name.  "Why would I want to give this dipshit more publicity?" he asks, then laughing sarcastically he says,  "Call him Gren Phake."

The Japanese love equipment and the crowd studies Schmidt's North Face suit.

"How long your pole," one spectator finally manages.

"Ah,  Rip Curl, number one," the next agrees.  

Another inquires, "What kind ski this?"  

"New K2 Stinger." Plake replies signing a new ski jacket.   "Don't eat the Yellow Snow," he writes with a flourish as the jacket's owner grins broadly and bows repeatedly.  

Watching the competitors skid their turns, Plake rails against weenie skis--do everything, "All Terrain Vehicles" that don't do anything well.  He is incensed about a recent industry wide decision to eliminate the 210, 213 and 215 centimeter skis that he believes are "the rightful domain of the truly expert skier."

"Today every ski has a focus or purchasing group." he grouses.  "It's all lifestyle. You take a race ski into the moguls, and you'll bend it, but you wouldn't think of taking your Ferrari four wheeling.  Nooo!"  Here he imitates a shop salesman by making a mouth like a carp. "This Giant slalom makes great slalom turns." he says. "When I hear that, I feel like slapping them upside the head." 

Glen wants Scott and Stina Lisa to climb Yotei-san with him but that afternoon the volcano glows blood red and snow rages throughout the night. With Yotei-san hidden in thick clouds, we dive off Niseko's backside into a deep, swirling fog.  Fifteen hundred vertical feet and a mile and a half later, the clouds thin to reveal the Goshiki Ansen bath.  The ansen bath is one example of the decorum that permeates Japanese society.  Here the men wear small towels into the natural hot water, while the women wear larger towels.  Shrouded by the steam which curls up a cornice above the bath, Scot describes how he recently fasted on fruit juices and natural foods to cleanse his body of impurities.

 Though he speaks only rudimentary Japanese, Plake loves Sumo Wrestling.  He is fascinated with Sura Bashi? Japan's spring sumo tournament where two huge men in G-strings try to bash each other out of a ring. 

The Japanese have taken western dress code to heart and, on this muggy spring day, few in this sea of conservative dark suits, white shirts, sedate ties and tailored dresses can ignore Glen's mohawk. Anchored like a dorsal fin on his shaved head, it is both a vertical stabilizer and visual bait.  Towering above the packed sidewalks Plake's mohawk incites both surprise and laughter from the blue uniformed schoolgirls as well as veiled anger from a few black suited businessmen.

Plake knows the history of Sumo as well as the biographies, moves and win loss records of its stars.  His hero is the American Aki Bono, a six foot six, two hundred and sixty kilo, cat quick Hawaiian. Though  K-2 is trying  to arrange an introduction, Aki Bono is on a publicity tour.  "Maybe something will work out," K2's  Hiroshi Morise says in perfect English. 

Tokyo proves to be prohibitively expensive.  Here the dollar is so weak, that a mush melon costs four hundred  dollars.  On our last morning in Japan, five of us spend $500.00 for two hours at the SAWS (Summer Autumn Winter Spring) indoor ski dome. Rising like an imposing gray off ramp on Tokyo's out skirts, that morning the Ski Dome is nearly empty.  The dome, however, is a ski area manager's dream come true for with one quad chair and one inclined people mover, a single pair of rental skis will make $18,000 in a single season.  And the SAWS rental shop contains thousands of skis, boots and poles ordered in perfect, sparkling rows.            

When I think about it, the Dome's gentle pitch, piped music and rime covered steel beams seem an odd place for the two extremists to finally find time to ski together.  And, truthfully, Scot and Glen manage to behave for five runs.  They return the lift operator's bows and make perfect turns down the black diamond's perfect, groomed fall line.  But Extreme lives in their souls and though you're supposed to take off your skis before you ride the people mover, Prake and Schmidt clomp on anyway.  Then, dragging his ski tip behind him, Glen breaks into his patented "Rhino."  Sucking his knees up underneath him Scot airs a snow gun's berm under the chair. In seconds, the indoor ski patrol is standing next to them.