Kansaiash
-
Content Count
390 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Kansaiash
-
-
In not sure if its west japan. Its east of Kyoto and west of Tokyo.
Also not Geihoku.
-
Lol.
Ok better hint, last season on Saturdays it had early morning and nighta riding. You could ride from 5am until 9 or 10pm 11pm. They will have the same thing again this year.
-
Hint
Haven't you posted that one before?
-
-
Not Gokase Highland or Meihou
-
Editted to fix my mistake. Its not Tsugaike. I think the mountain in the distance is Ontake.
-
Only took me 285 pages to finally get a guess right.
Where is this photo taken from?
-
-
Also on eg2s, has anyone tried the 2.5? I know the 2.5s are a smaller version of the eg2s, just wondering how much difference there is in the field of view.
-
If you dont mind buying last seasons gear then you can get some good deals in Japan through rakuten.
-
-
A couple of snowboarding movies I'm looking forward to seeing soon.
Never Not
and
Jake Blauvelt Naturally
-
-
This was my third season and the first one I had a car so quite a few new places for me this time around.
Nozawa Onsen, Suginohara, Ikenotaira, Cortina, Iwatake, Tsugaike, Happo-one, Ryou, Hida Nagareha, Meihou and Okuibuki
Would love to see/hear more about those Kansaiash
Thought I had posted them, sorry about that. I've added Hida Nagareha and Meihou to my Gifu thread.
As for Okuibuki I havent written a report yet because the place really annoyed me. It was overpriced, bad conditions and the places I wanted to ride i wasnt allowed to.
-
Meiho 26 Jan 2013
Australia Day in the mountains of Japan
Resort: Meihou Ski-jo, Gifu
Snow Condition: Plenty of snow fell on previous day and continued through the night. The snow condition was very nice with lots of fresh powder. The top ungroomed runs were easily waist deep.
Weather: There was a strong wind forecast but luckily it wasn't too bad at the resort. The top runs got a little wind swept towards the end of the day but it didn't cause any major issues. Light snow was falling for most of the day so conditions were a little overcast but visibility was still pretty good.
The day: This was the first time for me to visit Meihou, a friend of mine recommended it a while ago and based on his recommendation I purchased some discounted lift tickets at the start of the season so this day seemed like a good day to go and check it out. I had a lot of fun but I think that was mainly due to the crazy amount of snow that had fallen. I spent the morning bombing the ungroomed runs at the top of the mountain until the powder was pretty tracked out. This was also the first time that I got my new board and bindings set up right at the start for a powder day. I was really impressed by how well it handled the snow, I was getting plenty of float so I could basically straight line down the deep snow. Unfortunately I forgot my gopro pole this day so I only have video from my helmet and also I lost a fair bit of footage by my gopro not recording properly. After this day an upgrade to the new model gopro is looking like a really good idea. Meihou seems like a pretty popular place and as soon as I stopped hitting up the ungroomed advanced runs at the top I was shocked by how many people were there. This is the same at all the Gifu resorts I have been to on weekends. The beginner and intermediate runs are very busy with beginners, people teaching their friends and people buttering around and doing spins. Getting down off the mountain at the end of the day was almost challenging as I had to dodge so many people. I didn't have that much time to go exploring and finding tree runs. Under the top lift looks like it would be very fun but pretty steep in parts and this day I really didn't need to venture off the runs very far to ride nice deep powder. Also the patrols seemed to be a bit more active at than other places in Gifu I've boarded so far this year. In the morning they were lapping the top runs warning people who were going off-piste to stop. From what I could tell it was only a warming and nothing more.
27th January 2013
Resort: Takasu Snow Park
Snow Condition: Powdery, about 10-20cm of new snow fell overnight.
Weather: Overcast on the mountain, blue skies everywhere else.
The day: This day was a bit of a mixed day for me. It started out bad with horrible traffic heading up to Gifu. The trip which should take 3hrs ended up taking close to 5.5hrs. There was a bit of snow on the road between Shiga and Nagoya so the highway patrol where out and blocking both lanes to make everyone drive at 50km/h. After Nagoya they disappeared but then there were a couple of accidents and heavy traffic all the way up to the highway exit. We finally arrived at Takasu at 10:30. I helped my friends get there rental gears and we were finally ready to hit the pow at around 11:30, well what was left of it anyway. The groomed and ungroomed runs were all pretty well tracked out but that wasn't an issue because in the trees there was still plenty of pow to be had. The pow was pretty deep and I managed to stay upright a lot more this week than previous visits on the same runs, I think this had a lot to do with setting up my bindings appropriately for powder riding. I went over to Dynaland for lunch and to meet up with some people who had been there since 5am. They said the morning was amazing with even the groomers having nice powder conditions early on. I didn't stay at Dynaland for long and headed back to Takasu to get some more tree runs in before leaving for the day. As is was getting more confident with my boarding in the trees I also became a bit more complacent and had 2 instances this day that could have ended a lot worse. The first was when I was exploring a ridge line trying to get to a big open face that drops onto the main run. I ended up heading a little bit too far down one side of the ridge and couldn't get back so I had no option but to go down which unfortunately led to being stuck in a gully and having to take off my board and walk/dig my back to the course. The snow was too soft to get good footing and took about 10 minutes to get about 20 metres. Looking back this was potentially a dangerous position to be in and a mistake I will do my best to avoid in the future. The second close call was not as avoidable as the first, it also happened on the last run of the day. I was coming out of the trees after taking a slightly new line I hadn't tried before. The run through the trees was great and again it was mostly untracked snow but when I went to join the main course all of a sudden a hole appeared in the snow. I couldn't do anything except try to jump it, luckily I had enough speed and the hole wasn't very big so I managed to get over the hole. Even though I had a few close calls it was still an enjoyable day on the snow. We left around 5pm and the traffic was horrible again. The Takasu area really is shocking in the evening as everyone from the 5 or so ski-jos in the area are trying to leave at the same time. This time the 3hr trip home took around 5hrs. A great day on the snow but a shocker on the roads. From this day on I will not go to the Gifu area on a snowy day unless I can leave much earlier to beat all the crazy traffic.
-
Resort: Hida Nagareha
Snow Condition: It was snowing all day with strong winds at the top of the mountain. Visibility was pretty average at times. However the snow condition was very nice. The lower slopes had about 15cm of fresh snow on top of a crusty under layer. The upper slopes had around 20-40cm of new snow.
The Day: This was my first time to go to Hida Nagareha and the only reason I went was because it was part of a package tour organised by someone else and I had no say in which resort we were going to. To be honest I was considering not going because I had looked at the ski-jo map online and wasn't so impressed. However, looking back at the weekend I am so glad that I went. This ski-jo had some amazing powder snow but so would most resorts after the dump we had on Friday night. The thing that made this resort so good was the lack of the crazy crowds I usually encounter at Gifu ski-jos. I was enjoying fresh untracked runs on piste for the morning. The strong winds made for some interesting conditions at the top of the mountain. On exposed faces there were hard and wind swept packs however all the snow was being dumped on unexposed faces which made for some lovely powder conditions. As nice as the snow was at the top of the mountain the wind, cold temperatures and slow lifts made it not so enjoyable for me so I headed back to the sheltered side of the mountain to escape the wind and see what powder I could find. With a little exploring I managed to find a couple of really nice tree lines that no one else was hitting. The powder was really deep in these runs luckily I didn't have to dig myself out so I didn't find out how deep it really was but I'm 185cms tall and it was easily waist deep. This day was a really enjoyable one as I was able to charge hard from the first lift of the morning until the last lift of the day hitting powder stashes all day.
February 17 2013
Resort: Hida Nagareha
Snow Condition: The snow continued from the previous afternoon but stopped around 8pm that night. There was about 10cm of fresh snow on the side of the groomed areas.
Weather: The day started out lovely with blue skies for most of the morning. Any clouds that were around were up very high so visibility was great all day.
The day: Unfortunately my bus back to Kansai was leaving at 2 so I only got half a day on the slopes but made the most of what time I had. The Sunday seemed to bring in a few more people than the Saturday and the lift lines were slightly longer but still nothing to complain about. The groomed runs were nice and fast in the morning and the powder stashes from the previous day were still in decent condition too. Since there wasn't as much snow on the Saturday night and more people at the ski-jo any of the easy to access powder stashes got tracked out pretty fast. However the tree runs were still relatively untouched. I spent the morning exploring these runs and found some really nice runs that were hardly tracked at all. I went to Hida Nagareha expecting to be bored after a few hours but could have easily spent another day there. The lack of the weekend crowds makes it tempting to revisit.
-
Here is a video I put together from the day. Unfortunately the tunes I originally used were blocked by youtube so the music is not the best. Hope you enjoy and any advice welcome.
-
This was my third season and the first one I had a car so quite a few new places for me this time around.
Nozawa Onsen, Suginohara, Ikenotaira, Cortina, Iwatake, Tsugaike, Happo-one, Ryou, Hida Nagareha, Meihou and Okuibuki
-
That would depend on where you are going in Gifu.
Kyoto Higashi IC -> Skijam = about 210km
Kyoto Higashi IC -> Dynaland = about 215km
-
No jam unfortunately just shredding when Ive been there.
Its about 3 hours drive from Kyoto higashi IC. Its slightly less than going up to the Takasu(Gifu) area.
-
Thanks guys and yea the snow was really nice on this day. Kind of annoyed I left it to the end of the season to get up there. Next season I think ill be spending a few more days here instead of Gifu or Nagano.
-
I noticed Ski Jam Katsuyama made it on the "Guess where this is" thread so I thought I would share on of my experiences there this year.
February 23rd 2013
Resort: Skijam Katsuyama, Fukui
Snow condition: Lots of fresh snow on and off the courses. There was about 20cm of fresh snow over night and snow continued through the day, heavy at times. The snow depth in the off-piste areas varied from about 10-40cms.
Weather: Weather wise this day would have to be one the strangest days I have experienced on the snow ever. The night before and early morning had snow, around 9am the sun started to break through the clouds and we had a couple of hours of sunshine. Around lunch the clouds came back and so did the snow. At times the clouds were low making visibility very bad and the snow was very heavy at times. I got completely covered in snow while I waited for about 5 minutes at the top of one of the lifts.
The day: This was the first time I have been back to Skijam in 2 seasons. Last time I visited this place was on my third day of boarding so the terrain and the lines I was seeking were completely different from my last trip. Skijam opens at 7:30 on the weekends and we arrived around 8am, I was a little worried about a late arrival after my previous experiences this season with heavy traffic in Gifu. To my surprise Fukui or Skijam seems to be less popular and doesn’t have the same issues, we had a non stop run all the way to the ski-jo. The ski-jo also wasn’t so crowded, I think we had to wait in line about 2 or 3 times all day. The rest of the time we could jump straight onto the lifts. The lift lines or lack of lift lines could be because of the area we were boarding all day. Skijam is quite big and due to the layout it is a bit of a mission to get to the top lifts. These lifts also only service intermediate and advanced level runs so I guess that keeps a lot of the beginners on the bottom parts of the mountain. To go from the bottom lift to the top requires taking 4 lifts and takes about 30-40 minutes. It's a long way up but on a powder day like February 23rd it was more than worth it. My friends and I spent all day lapping the same quad lift at the top of the mountain finding fresh tracks in the trees every run. It was an extremely enjoyable day to be on the snow with challenging terrain and great snow. This is one place that I will have to remember about for next year during the peak season weekends. I will be back there again this season and if the snow is good I might even go back next weekend.
-
Gifu
Dynaland: electronic
Takasu Snow Park: electronic
Meihou: paper
Hida Nagareha: paper
Fukui
Skijam Katsuyama: paper
-
Sorry to disappoint but only warm weather and sunshine down my way.
Guess Where This Is
in Snow talk, trip reports, Japan avalanche & backcountry
Posted
Its not Takasu Snow Park