badmigraine
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Posts posted by badmigraine
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It's no secret that Dy-Doo, Yakult, Coca-Cola of Japan and a major but nearly bankrupt Japanese automaker are testing prototypes of onslope mobile vending machines.
Last weekend at Kandatsu I thought I saw an illuminated polar bear picking its way through the trees under the lift.
Upon further inspection, it proved to be a roving vending machine full of drinks and snacks, horizontally mounted on small cat tracks with optical, motion and stalk-like antenna feeler sensors.
"biiru, koohii, hotto cocoa, sunikkas baas ikaga desyou ka" was the tinny mechanical refrain it spouted over and over like some space-age consumeristic litany, while a minor forest full of chipmunks, tit mice and grumbling bears rolled over in their troubled hibernatory slumber.
The program is not yet perfect. They need to teach it to get out of the woods, and paint it a color that's more readily visible than the standard white. Too hard to see on the snow, I thought.
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Nice!!
Barok, you may be onto something here! This is definitely a shopping-positive concept!
What would a freestyle board do for a person?
Would I go in halfpipes and off kickers and ride rails and berms in the park on it? Would it make me better or more comfortable at all that than the 550 does?!
FYI I can't do any of that stuff yet. I just started trying recently, and all I seem to get is smashed down on concrete-hard ice!
I'm ready to step up with full body armor and a freestyle board, if that is what it is going to take!
I even read about the difference between an indy and a frontside grab. (Did I get that right?)
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Come on, don't keep us waiting!
What's the punchline?!?!
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Great!
Keep them coming!!
I am listening, and I am starting to feel really good about this!
Come on!!
Give it your best shot!!
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Sociobiologists posit that shopping is merely a modern acting-out of a vestigial, genetically-embedded instinctive hunter/gatherer behavior. Certainly medical science (this particular line of inquiry no doubt funded by your friendly retail conglomerates) has documented the discrete physiological state the body assumes during "shopping": dialated pupils, rapid darting eye movements, a complex cognitive state akin to meditation in which brain functions neatly balance a river of comparative visual imagery with memory, emotion, planning/organizing, personal financial accounting...
Observe the hunting cat. Do not his head and eye movements, body posture and philosophical demeanor strangely resemble those of homo sap on a shopping binge?
If this is not proof enough for you, try following one of these cats. Eventually you'll see him disappear into a shrubbery, then re-appear an hour or so later, laden with Gap, Banana Republic, Seibu and Victoria bags, and quite likely a feline Camelback full of Starbucks Catnip Tea.
All too true.
What a world!
This astonishing panoply of seemingly unrelated gems has led us inevitably to what comes next:
The Snowboard I saw On Sale at Victoria that I DON'T NEED.
I already have my kit...or, as Mogski put it, my "2 Kits".
When it comes to Kit advice, Mogski is of the antique Mormon persuasion: two wives are better than one.
You have one kit for the big fluffy powder days, the nice snow days, the Hokkaido trips...
And you have another workaday kit for the regular grind...a sharp railing snappy all-mountain utility kit for your Niigatas and your Naganos and your Generally F-ing About days.
I myself have invested in 2 wives...one is a Supermodel, a long, tall, plush, shapely smooth classy Cadillac of a prize that only consents to be seen in public on powder days and up in Hokkaido.
The other is named Sally 550, and that tight little Ginsu Knife can pop and snap and flex and rock all night long, then jeer you into doing it all over again!
So why on earth would I want to pick up a Salomon Fastback 163 on sale for a quite reasonable sum?
Reviews on the Net praise the board to the skies, but all for things that I don't really need.
"Perfect for Big Mountain Carving..."
(When am I going to do "big mountain carving" in Japan? Never. Big Mountain = Hokkaido = powder. Well I already have a powder board, and I love it.)
"This board is FAST...floated in the pow, railed on the crud and hardpack..."
(My Salomon 550 already does all that, is lighter and can also go in the park [even if I can't]. I already own a "bomber" board. So why would I need this new board?)
Could it be that the graphics are really cool on that new Fastback?
Could it be that the 18,000 yen annual fee on my new Citibank credit card is waived if I charge 60,000 yen on it by March 15?
Could it be that I am confusing a desire to demo with a desire to own?
The point of this thread, and my request to you, is:
Won't somebody out there help me develop a cheap specious rationalization that will permit me to buy this sexy new board that I don't really need?
Thank you in advance for your contributions.
[This message has been edited by badmigraine (edited 25 January 2002).]
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Here I am again having tooled around the Net in search of tips on how to wax textured bases.
I found virtually no useful information, but did stumble across a review of a textured-base Forum board. Here is an amusing snippet from the review:
"One neat thing about the base is that it is textured with little ridges. This is supposed to help with tracking. I kind of noticed it help, but wasn't sure. What I did notice was a neat little sound the board made, kind of like the "zipzip" corduroy pants make as you walk with them on. The fun unfortunately doesn't last forever. After my first base grind in the shop, all the little ridges were gone. The board seems to ride exactly the same minus the cool noise."
What a total idiot! Both him and the shop that did a base grind and erased the texture.
Well, maybe he had his reasons.
Idiot.
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Any tips on waxing a snowboard with a textured base?
I have a Salomon 550 and the base has thousands of tiny lengthwise channels in it. It is a fast base, but I have the feeling that if I wax it, I'll just be clogging up the channels with wax and turning it into a regular base.
Are my fears baseless?
Please advise.
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Mogski and I plan to show our ladies a good time by setting up a 2-3 night stay in Nozawa.
Naturally we need lodging, preferably with a bath or hotspring nearby or on the premises.
We'll pretend to spend romantic, quality time with them (clearly this will require separate rooms with thicker walls), then from dawn till dusk abandon them on the slopes as we bog off on our own in search of Fun, steeps and the Floaty Stuff...
I'll be boarding of course but I heard the resort still doesn't allow boarders on Every slope...is that true? I may rent Fat Skis one day just to see if I can still do it, but that may actually never happen and if it does it will be on a day when Ocean11 isn't there to catch me and report it to you lot!
Can anyone recommend a decent place? We speak Japanese, and will travel by train from Tokyo, no car.
Recommendations or anecdotes, anyone?
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From my point of view, the height of onslope fashion this year is my brand-new used disgusting brown one-piece 1980's women's snowmobile suit with giant revolting cream collar, dirty white reflective strips, bunched-elastic waist, and fake leather clasp belt now cracked and moldy from hanging neglected in Joe's Surplus Store in Plymouth, Michigan for over 10 years.
Thanks to my dear sister, Good Girl, the best bikin' n boardin' bitch in Walled Lake, for this $19.99 Xmas gift.
The best gift I've gotten since the year they gave me a Lite-Brite AND a Spirograph all at once.
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I tried my new boots last weekend at Kandatsu and there was zero heel lift... I also tried out my new Palmer Power Link binding risers.
I don't know the actual share of credit each of these two products deserves for the vast improvement, but they have solved my problem.
The outer part of the tongue of the K2 boot is hard plastic, like on a hard boot (even though the inner part, and the rest of the boot, is soft). This means when I ratchet down the two straps on my binding, there is no pressure point, the entire tongue is pushed evenly down onto the top of my foot. Comfy and tight!
There's no heel lift in that boot either. The liner has a proturbance to keep the heel/ankle down in the boot, that matches the shape of the back of my feet. The similar proturbance in Burton and Salomon boots just hits my bones and tendon attachment points in the most painful way. I literally had to rip the boots off in the shop, then stand there gasping in disbelief at how uncomfortable they were.
Well, the new boots and the Power Links make me feel like I am directly attached to my edges, like I am riding on a knife. Feels great!!
Highly recommended!
Next I need to try hard boots and plates, but I think that may have to wait until next year.
[This message has been edited by badmigraine (edited 23 January 2002).]
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Mobi, online advice is probably the only safe way to help Mogski with his boot/binding issue.
About a week ago, I was briefly exposed to the noxious fumes that emanate from his boots.
I woke up hours later in the hospital with space-suited Hazardous Chemical Removal workers prodding me with probes.
Be careful.
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Ocean, my O'Neal Azonics body armor is a mesh zip-up shirt with hard clamshell/soft pad shoulder and elbow protection, a padded kidney/pelvis velcro wraparound, and best of all, a full articulated plastic/padded spine protector that looks like nothing so much as the back of a common pillbug or woodlouse (armadillidium vulgare - you can see a picture of him at
www.ze-card.com/images/insects/insects1.htm
and tell him I said hello).
I used to do a lot of motorcycling when I lived in Michigan and California, so this supersafe-seeming product appealed to me and my soft pink flesh in a way that the flimsy foamy padding you usually see on sale did not.
In a twist that only foreign denizens of Japan can properly appreciate, this miraculous O'Neal Azonics solution only cost me 11,000 yen, shipped from the US...buying the flimsy local foam and velcro protectors to approximate its function would have set me back a lot more than that.
BTW thanks for your good "recommend" on leg braces...after reading that, I plopped myself down on Google and eventually landed up looking dreamily at Burton's "knee gasket".
This product appears to combine the protective virtues of rollerblade kneepads with the steel-braced hinged knee support perenially popular among the reconstructed ACL set.
I'm thinking about it!!
(Not a reconstructed ACL, mine are fine thanks; but I am thinking about getting a Burton Knee Gasket!)
I sort of lost track of it in my earlier post in this thread, but where I was going was this: As much as I sneer at the "look at Me!" pipe n park crowd, I want to do it too...but when I do all I get is hurt.
So I am going the full-body-protection route this year. Look for me flopping, crashing and spinning out in your local snowboard park.
I don't need any pads for freeriding, but that hard ice in the park n pipe scares me.
At age 38 I have nothing to prove except proof of medical insurance, and that, for now, is taken care of.
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Not really on topic, but the media and video scene, with its ludicrous overemphasis on the pipe/park/big air scene, has at least in Japan spawned a generation of hucking twits who attempt to imitate what they saw in a vid or mag by launching off kickers and q-pipes in the various resorts and fun parks you will find nowadays.
Some of them are getting pretty good at it, too. More power to them--it keeps them off the real slopes and away from the places where I'd like to do some real Riding...
I've not seen a one of those jumping, jibbing fools do anything but flop and scrape like a beginner down anything resembling a decent hill, and as for powder (which to my mind is one of the easiest things to do on a board), well...they avoid it like your average gaijin avoids natto.
Park and freeriding are two completely different disciplines.
That being said, I got a Blax helmet, wrist-bracing impact gloves, and a cool O'Neal (moto-x company, not the homonym water/snow O'Neill company) Azonics body armor (think Mad Max/Borg) with articulated spine protector, and am working on a kneepad solution after learning what it feels like to slam my patella into concrete-hard ice at Kandatsu yesterday...
The confidence and cushy good feelings this type of protective gear give a 38-year-old like myself is amazing.
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The tiny acorn-hat alarm clock tapped out its wakeup call on a very grey and cold morning. It was 5:30 a.m. in Undertree Forest.
The light filtering dimly through the layer of snow around the knothole in the hollow stump revealed two furry balls curled comfortably into circular nests of dry grass. After a minute, one of the balls--for it was a mouse--twitched its pink nose and pipped out a mouselike sneeze.
"Heigh-ho"squeaked Crispin Fieldmouse (for that was his name), "We'd best be up and eating our brekka, if we are to meet Arthur the Hedgehog at Kandatsu Kogen this fine morning!"
"Humph...krrr... I'll just as soon catch up on my hibernation, if you don't mind... And would you please pipe down while others around you may be trying to sleep!" retorted his companion Botsford Mousely.
Botsford was always grumpy before having his morning coffee bean.
"Oh, Botsford, you silly goose, come off it! We must be up and on our way! You know how dreadfully Arthur the Hedgehog sulks when we are late. Anyway, I heard from that speckled sparrow who delivers the berries that the Velvetmunks will be there for lunch!"
"What?! What?!" said Botsford, now fully awake. "You mean Tyra and Ayumi, the chipmunk cousins?
"Yes!" replied Crispin in a thick voice, attempting to conceal with a scrap of dried leaf what appeared to be a longish pink grain of rice poking through the soft fur around his nether regions.
Taking no notice of this embarrassing development, Botsford scurried rapidly out of his nest, opened the cedar-bark cabinet and rolled out a coffee bean, which he began gnawing with gusto. "I rather fancy Tyra, but Ayumi is more my cup of tea!" he piped. "Anyway, you can have Tyra. I give her to you. I will spend the day snowboarding with Ayumi! I do so like the way she brings extra seeds and nuts in her cheek pouches..."
"Well, I shan't stand in your way if you want to bog off on your own!" retorted Crispin hotly. "Steadman Titmouse told me Tyra was secretly admiring my tail at last month's Grain Alcohol Ball... I rather expect you'lll have to find another place to nest tonight if I Tyra and I happen to come back here together..."
"Let's go!! Let's go!! Come on, let's go!" squeaked Botsford, his voice growing ever more overwrought. In a fit of excitement, he flung his half-gnawed coffee bean at Crispin's head, pulled his walnut-shell helmet out of the cabinet and picked up his bark snowboard. "I am ready!" he squealed impatiently.
Crispin, abanding all attempts to conceal his throbbing morning erection, snatched his cotton puff hat and prized Paddington Bear pea jacket (stolen off a child's toy at a picnic the summer before) from the shelf and leapt for the door.
Meanwhile, the other side of Undertree Forest, Arthur the Hedgehog was girding himself for another fine day on the slopes. "I do so look forward to these weekend frolics," he snuffled in his grey voice, "And perhaps Portia Porcupine will be there again! She is a dem fine creature, I can tell you, a dem fine creature!"
If we could have peeked into Arthur's burrow just a scant two minutes later, we might have found him hunched oddly over a bit of worm-holed wood, eyes blinking and filmy in the half-light, and using the tiny apertures in the wood to simulate the sexual act in a manner reminiscent of a flatfish scouring the ocean bottom.
However, let us leave this happy woodland scene and turn our attention to the matters er, at hand shall we say: Pray for Snow! Three of us animals have managed to shed the girlfriends/wives for a weekend, and are headed to the mountains next Saturday for a Man's day on the mountains and in the lodges!
[This message has been edited by badmigraine (edited 21 January 2002).]
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Who found the Tail?
"I," said Pooh,
"At a quarter to two
(Only it was quarter to eleven really),
I found the Tail!"
My contribution to this thread is a set of turns made directly under the longest lift at Kandatsu yesterday around four-thirty in the afternoon...
The only feedback received from the lift above was a single "ganbare!", immediately after which I did an endo but came right-side up and still making those nice powder turns like I had planned the whole tumble.
Mogski, who orchestrated the entire escapade and was not to be outdone, gave a demonstration of "tachi-iri-kinshi" tree-skiing that stirred the assorted denizens of the mountain forests from their hibernatory slumber. His judicious choice of line through the timbered glades, aided in no small part by his brand-new kit of Salomon Pocket Rockets and lime-green boots, caused more than one badger and even a recalcitrant bear to sit up and clap their paws in admiration, whereupon they retired to their caves and we to ours.
The only thing that could have improved the experience in some small measure would have been my disgusting brown vintage 1982 one-piece snowmobile suit with wide flapping cream-colored collar and bunched-elastic waistband with fake leather clasp belt.
In retrospect, I cannot say that I encourage this sort of thing. If I did, there would be less untouched powder for me...
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I'm tired of having to ratchet down my binding straps so tightly that the blood stops, in order to get the quick, stiffly linked response that I want from my edges. By the end of the run my feet are killing me and I have to loosen the straps for the ride up. It is just too much of a pain in the foot...always having to deal with weird pressure points and vise-like clamping.
I've just upgraded to a boot that fits my foot shape and ankle better, and should cut way down on heel lift, maybe even eliminate it.
While shopping in Kanda last night I was drawn to the hard boots and risers and platform bindings... I suppose that kind of thing would solve my boot/binding issue, but I don't like hardboots for anything else, like walking or pipe or whatever.
So I had a look at the Flow bindings. I tried them on in the shop with my new boots, and they seemed to give a really tight, stiff boot-binding linkage, without causing any painful or circulation-cutting pressure points.
I was all set to buy them on the spot but they didn't have the ones I wanted in stock. After I got home I poked around on the Net and found varying opinions, ranging from quality problems in '99 to claims that the wire cable stretches and the linkage, though firm-feeling in the shop, gives a lot and flexes if you load it up during hard carving or edging.
Based on what I found on the Net (and it wasn't much) I came away with the impression that the Flow bindings are super convenient like a step-in, great for powder runs or freestyling, but not a great choice for hard freeriding or hard-charging on steeps because they aren't stiff or responsive enough.
I don't know whether this is true or not, but that is the impression I got.
Does anybody have these bindings, and can you let me know what you think of them?
Ben? Jinja?
A couple of threads I saw suggested that a good solution for someone who wants a really stiff boot/binding linkage is the K2 Aggressor boot + clicker. That boot is the stiffest soft boot on the market, and actually has front and back ridges so you can mount plate bindings and use it on an Alpine, freecarve or race board.
The boot part of that sounds like exactly what I need, but I am not too fond of Clicker bindings.
Wish I could find a 3-strap binding like Burton used to make.
badmigraine in Tokyo.
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Er thanks Ocean11, but I am Mogski's ski date...not some unlucky chick.
I've had my doubts about Mogski's masculinity for some time now. So if he tries any of your lines on me, that'll clinch it.
This is the just the type of controlled scientific experiment that exposes the bare facts.
Well, now that I think about it, it's not really a true test because my brown 1-piece snowsuit with clasp belt and cream collar is so utterly irresistible, it will have people seeing stars and crossing lines all over the place.
I tried it out at Mt. Bohemia in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula Dec. 29-Jan 1. and just as felt I was beginning to understand the reactions of those around me, my flask ran dry, the "base camp" stash bottle of Raspberry Schnapps under the pine tree near the lift base was empty, and next thing I knew I was back at Lac LaBelle lodge sinking my teeth into another rare filet with a bottle of Woodbridge Cab and a passel of backwoods snowmobilers with names like "Ogre", "Crappy" and "Injun Dave"...
In that crowd, a brown snowsuit with clasp belt is nothing special at all.
The only way I could get any attention was by announcing in a loud voice that I had never done a shot of Jagermeister in my entire life. The entire bar fell silent for a second, then suddenly a plate of shots appeared in front of me and everyone helped me lose that cherry.
For a guy with many cherries left to lose, I can tell you that was a good one.
badmigraine in Tokyo.
[This message has been edited by badmigraine (edited 11 January 2002).]
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Hi Ocean11,
Thanks for the brutal honesty.
I am still single, and when possible I take my beer cold and my women, hot!
Lately there has been a rather unfortunate amendment to this mantra, along the lines of:
"I take my beer cold, and then another beer cold, and then another beer cold..." ad nauseam (er literally ad nauseam, on occasion...)
But things are looking up.
I've got a strong feeling that my $19 used disgusting rude brown 1-piece snowsuit with metal clasp belt, wide cream collar and bunched elastic round the waist for that extra-wide-hipped look will get me back in the good graces of the multitudes of hot women that populate the slopes and cities here in Japan.
Full report available after our Niigata debut on Sunday, Jan. 20th.
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This is too good to be true!!
Can those snow forecast people also predict what mood my girlfriend will be in over the next 72 hours?
Nothing I can do seems to affect it much.
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You know, I have often suspected that Japan rules in annual snowfall. Especially in Hokkaido, where it never seems to stop...
But I am not sure what to make of snow-forecast.com's list of the "top ten snowiest"...
Do you think it means "top ten average annual snowfall", or "top ten snowfall so far this year"?
If the former, then the list seems incomplete because Whistler-Blackcomb only gets about 360 inches (914cm) per year, while many other resorts in N. America alone average lots more. For example, the Utah resorts Snowbird, Brighton etc. average 500 inches (1270cm) per year, as does Kirkwood at Tahoe, and Mt. Baker in Washington State averages an incredible 615 inches (1562cm) per year.
If the stats are for this year's accumulated snowfall only, then they don't reflect the SkiJapan Guide snowfall figures, which show Niseko with more snow than Shiga Kogen or Naeba, for example. But Niseko didn't make snow-forecast.com's list.
Maybe the list is only a ranking of the resorts covered by snow-forecast.com.
That's a great, cool site and when I saw that list myself I was going to post about it here too, but Ocean11, proving incontravertably that "great minds think alike" has saved me the trouble.
In the past I would go to resorts with a lot of snow in search of powder.
Now, with age and decrepitude setting in, I use snow-forecast.com to select the resort where I can expect my incessant crashing and falling to be cushioned by the plushest amount of white stuff...FOOM!! FWOOOSH!! OW!!!
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Yes, it's true. The quality and volume of snow in Japan are terrific! And I will be surfing the powder at Niseko in about 5 weeks. Meanwhile, there are more local fixes to be had, every weekend...
But I do wish I could play on the advanced terrain that one finds at resorts in the US such as Kirkwood, Snowbird, Brighton, Mt. Baker, Big Sky, Jackson Hole...
Kirkwood's annual snowfall is 500 inches. That's 12.7 meters for those without calculators and conversion tables. That's a LOT...
Twiki, props to you for your Swiss upbringing! I went to the Ecole St. Michel in Fribourg, a smaller town not too far from Bern. I was 10-11 years old and we used to ski at Lac Noir and some place called Col de Mosses I think, as well as some famous places like Zermatt and Verbier but I don't remember that at all.
I was just a kid and a snowplow-level skier on wooden skis with Cubco bindings.
Being there amid all that splendour and possibility at such a tender, ignorant age is like being a small boy in the Playmates' dressing room. There it all is happening around you, but you are not in a position to know what you are really in the middle of. Staggering peaks, luscious valleys, hairy chutes and fragrant glades...
We used to play hooky from school and go up into the hills around Fribourg where there were ruins of medieval watchtowers ringing the river valley, and we'd play knights and swordsmen games with sticks under the crumbling castle walls. Once we found a porno magazine up there and that was a great day indeed.
Well, I will be doing the Niigata thing for the next few weeks because it's cheap and easy on the shinkansen. Look for me in a disgusting dirty used brown 1-piece snowsuit I picked up for $19 at a surplus store in Plymouth, Michigan.
It really is the rudest, most disgusting thing you ever saw.
badmigraine in Tokyo.
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I do not profess to have full details, but was nonetheless informed by reliable sources (Deep Throat - aka Mogski) that the nefarious Paddy was found drinking with friends in a disreputable Queenstown pub. He e has been studying the culinary arts in that town for the last year...Paddy is to become a chef.
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Maybe you guys won't believe it, but as Mogski can attest I spend most of the time on my snowboard in the moguls...I love the moguls. And I hate them...
I never mastered them in my ski days and then I got bored with skiing in general. That was years ago. I took up boarding in 1993 and after all these years I realize I am just a skier on a snowboard after all.
If there were more steep and exciting slopes and long powder runs and glades here in Japan, then I probably wouldn't spend much time on the moguls after all...but that is what I have come to here.
I never got into that pipe and park stuff. I gave the pipe a try at the end of last season and it was mildly amusing. Now I have full body armor and I will venture back into it this season.
But mostly I will be in the moguls...for lack of anything more stimulating to do.
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I just got back from Xmas/New Year's in Michigan, USA.
For those who don't know, that state gets tons of dry powder (thanks to the "lake effect" off the Great Lakes), but the terrain is mostly FLAT.
I went to a new resort called Mt. Bohemia that is purpose-built for advanced skiers/boarders only. Located at the tip of Michigan's upper peninsula, it gets more snow that Vail, Colorado and the quality of the powder was terriffic - dry, fluffy, light...well, you can check out their website at http://www.mtbohemia.com/ if you're interested.
The thing about it is, there are no beginner runs and everything there is pretty steep, top to bottom. I am not talking about an intermediate hill that has a sudden drop 50m long known as "The Wall" or "The Elevator" or something like that.
I am talking about runs that are, from top to bottom, steep and challenging...the kind of run where your screams of excitement drown out the screaming muscles in your thighs...I've seen plenty of runs like that in Utah, in Colorado, in California, in Washington, in Alberta and British Columbia... I lived in Switzerland as a boy and lord knows I saw plenty of horrifically fantastically scary runs over there too.
The only reason I bring this up is, at the end of my 3 days at Mt. Bohemia in lowly, flat Michigan, I concluded that their runs were more fun for me than almost any runs I've ridden in Japan.
In Japan, there are small patches of "advanced" terrain. Like that 45-degree slope on the front part of Kandatsu in Niigata. I once rode a pretty steep part of one hill at Furano. At Niseko you can find a few short but steep spots, and can even hike a little to a medium-length one, but then you have problems with the runout and depending on the line you take you may have to walk or skate back to the lift. I guess there are a couple of good things at Hakuba 47 too but as usual it ends too soon and there you are on the intermediate groomer again.
I've been to plenty of other resorts here in Japan too, but there is just nothing of great interest to an advanced skier/rider, outside of moguls and parks. People will tell you that this or that resort has some hard runs, but then you go there and it is a disappointment.
Frankly speaking, if you leave out the special Japan flavor of these places (Japanese food, onsens, the girls if you like 'em), these resorts are generally beginners' mountains that I would never patronize in the US, Canada or Europe. In fact, they would be something of a joke.
It's not a terrain problem, as you can see steep slopes and areas and mountains in Japan. But they are not part of the ski resorts...wherever I've been, lift-accessed "advanced" terrain seems to have purposely been left out of the program.
Can anyone recommend a resort in Japan that has some decent advanced runs that are not just blips in the middle of some intermediate hill?
I'm no expert or pro...just your garden variety advanced boarder...I am not talking about Alaskan first descents here. I m just looking for something to keep me interested. I am looking for something that will make me fall down. I want to be thrilled again, even scared. I am looking for a resort where I can escape my girlfriend for the weekend on the grounds that she cannot handle the level of difficulty. Slopes around 35-45 degrees, with some bumps and natural hits for playing around would probably achieve that goal.
Any ideas?
badmigraine in Tokyo.
!!URGENT!! -- Anyone know a cheap place to stay in Echigo Yuzawa
in Snow talk, trip reports, Japan avalanche & backcountry
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Ocean11, Nozzle is for the end of February with our charming young lasses in tow.
Before then, we have to emerge uninjured and financially solvent after scads of Niigata day-trips and one full week at Niseko.
If barok and freestyle boards have their way with me, I will be neither uninjured nor solvent by the end of February.
But thank god for the mobile onslope vending machines someone described in another thread on this board. I never heard of such a thing, but is sounds fantastic! I wonder if they have aspirin and tequila in those things?
In Walled Lake, Michigan, after popular outcry they would be forced to stock them with Jaegermeister, Watermelon Pucker, Percodan and Cabo Wabo.
And that's just for the healthy, uninjured customers.
My Dad likes to claim growing up in Bethnal Green with his back against the wall and a broken bottle in his hand.
As a teen, I often found myself in the same posture--except the wall was just to hold me up because I was too drunk, and I was holding the broken bottle because I'd dropped the damn thing, then stupidly picked it up again.
Of course I don't remember any of this, I am just repeating what others have told me over the years.
Well, back to work.