6.30am - I was amazed that Patrick and Josh turned up exactly on time. Josh had his Yuzawa leaving party the night before - he is a ski instructor for Naspa Ski Garden resort. Patrick was working until 3am at the Bottle Bar. A good start!

7.00am Arrive at Naeba ski resort: we took a taxi after dropping Patrick's car at Mitsumata. Get strange looks #1: 3 foreigners turn up 30min before the resort opens, obviously keen as mustard even though the resort conditions look pretty terrible.

7.30am Nightmare! Thick fog at the top of Naeba closes a lot of lifts that we were planning on riding. As a result we only do 7 lifts in this resort, as opposed to 14 in my warm-up attempt. The fog also slows us down, as visibility is only a couple of metres or so. The 3 of us look pretty foolish making such short ski turns, but we can't see where we are going!

9.40am Take the dragondola to Tashiro. The bacon, egg and HP sauce sandwiches made by Masako go down a treat.

10.00am Arrive in Tashiro resort, which is perfect for this sort of challenge: lots of lifts zig-zagging across the mountain, allowing us to clock up 10 lifts in quick succession.

10.20am Get strange looks #2: we catch the Tashiro ropeway down to the car park, only to stay on the chairlift and wait for it to go back up the mountain. We speak to Kiki-chan who is working on the lift - she spent time in America, speaks great English, has a degree in psychology & seemingly quite an interest in Yuzawa Bottle Bar Managers.

11.55pm Arrive in Kagura - thick fog again, causes the top lift to close. We start getting worried that we are going to run out of lifts.

12.40pm Mitsumata helps us by running the Express Lift 1, which doesn't always happen when there are not many customers around.

1.00pm Mitsumata cleared: we get 25 lifts done by 1pm. Record is still there for the taking, but we realise that its going to be tight!

1.20pm Bit of trouble with member of the Kandatsu staff, who made life difficult by being really picky about where we are allowed to park. He doesn't endear us by letting other customers park at the same spot after us!

1.40pm Legs are starting to get tired, but no-one dares admit it. A few mogul-type courses are not skied very well. Neil has one of his scariest-ever moments on a ski slope as Patrick nearly slammed into him at full tilt after some miscommunication concerning which course to ski next.

2.20pm The atmosphere brightens when we get to Yuzawa Kogen. This is a very relaxing, laid-back resort, which doesn't get crowded. Neil manages a huge stack on the 2nd run, obtaining some good war wounds.

2.25pm Without any prompting or request from me, Masako sends me a mail to let us know the footy scores. I fall in love with her all over again. Mood lifted further by the news that Derby County win away, and stay top of the Championship.

3.20pm Time is running out when we get to Gala Yuzawa. Again, the car-park attendant wasn't too happy with us: he even tried to explain that the resort closes at 5pm so it wasn't worth trying to ski

3.40pm The 'coach' course - the one at the top of Gala, is usually my favourite run here. When well groomed, you can flat-board down the steep, long slope and really get some speed up. Today its cut up by skiers into big moguls: we have to get down fast, and with tired legs. What started as a laugh is turning into a real test.

3.50pm We are running out of resorts to ski at, and also running out of time. Masako calls us to say that Ishiuchi has 6 lifts running, and that they are open until 5pm. Massive relief for all concerned: for the first time, everyone is sure that the record can be broken

4.15pm Arrive at Ishiuchi Maruyama, but the guy selling ski lift tickets has shut up shop for the day [last day of the season!]. Frantic explanation at the information desk means that the ticket guy came over - running - to get us our tickets

5.50pm WE DID IT ! Combination of elation, fatigue, and desire to drink a celebratory lager. The conditions in Ishiuchi are hilarious - some of the pistes were basically grass. We ring the bell at the top of the hill to celebrate, and Patrick pulls a top-class 360 turn off one of the jumps in the snow park.

And so what next? We think that even 44 lifts would be easy to surpass, by making the attempt a bit earlier in the season when more resorts are running night-skiing. We would like to make this an annual event - watch this space for details...

This was the first time that I'd tried 'sunrise ski' at Naeba - I caught first lifts from 7am. The views were simply stunning. I tried taking a few photos, but I only had my phone camera with me, which really didn't do the scenery justice.

I got though 13 lifts and Naeba by 10.15am - and this was including one mistake, where I took one lift twice. Was even feeling confident enough to take lunch after getting off the Dragondola