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The whole of Japan has a maritime snowpack. I have always been surprised that the snow in some places is advertised as "champagne". It can get extremely light at times similar to continental areas, but it is not the norm. Maritime snowpacks tend to be more stable than continental packs such as in the rockies. The shear depth of snow helps with regards to temperature gradient except early on in the season, but as mentionned earlier the high variability of weather can make it very tricky as well. Mr. Wiggles is the pro on all this so may be able to add. A season in heliskiing in the stoke m

Miaooooooooooowwwwww. Got the sparks, waiting for board.

Venture 181 wide + Sparks. Smaller than my current powder board but wider. Splits will be welcome for long approaches!

Man, quick reply. You are full time on the forums :-). I ordered the split, not sure when I will get it. I have shamelessly never gotten around to doing Tateyama. I always want to do it and invariably work or health issues have popped up every time. Let's see what happens this year...

Hi Tsonda, plans are to ride early, away from resorts often, use splits, take the 2nd part of the avie class, and practice some rescue techniques. This should keep me busy. :-) To be honest given the current market turmoil, I have not been thinking much in terms fo planning. The good thing about being busy is that winter is here before you know it.

anybody got a can of worms opener? Not ur fault grrrl, but the Niseko/Hakuba comparison has a long history on these forums. Given what I have read from u, sounds like H may suit ur style more than N (except for the night life). Loads of reviews/pics of both on here for you to make a decision. Whichever u choose, good luck n have fun n Tsonda is right re the Avie gear.

good luck to the ozs. Could this year be the historical first ?!

I can see this the tour 2008 is attracting a lot of interest from SJers.

some good mountain stages with some previously un-ridden mountain passes. watch for the col agnel.

I am not sure what words can appropriately reflect how I feel for Soub and his wife. Best wishes for a prompt recovery, and many positive vibes going your way Soub.

The co2 outlet is in your back so as not to contaminate the air intake. I guess theoretically if you are upside-down and your body heat creates a cavity big enough so that the co2 can seep down, then I guess that could potentially happen. I think you would still have more time than if you had no avalung and an ice mask formed in front of your face.

I had missed that thread, just read it. Sucks to be that frog.... I must admit snakes are not the most endearing animals...

My wife is the same. When she sees one she goes

Thanks SG, this is where I had been looking for to come up with the 2 suggestions. Cheers for the link slow. Some of them look kind of similar, but not really the same. I cannot find anywhere that rectangular bright yellow spot on the head anywhere. CB, the one I saw was around 20-30cm and very thin. Glad my wife was not around or she would have freaked.

Wow, sounds like you are very active. Good conditionning for next winter.

NPM, I saw it in Tanzawa when I went fly-fishing. Not much plans for the summer I must say. I'll try to go to Yuzawa a few times to hike a little bit and practice with some of the climbing gear I got. Tsonda, no worries. I used to boogy-board a little but have never really tried surfing. I do windsurfing mostly, especially when I am in hawaii which has some great conditions. A friend of mine who goes to hawaii surfing all the time has asked me to join him and his friend one of these week-ends in Chiba I think he said... I am thinking about it.

Quick question if we happen to have an herpetologue on the SJ forums: While walking near a river, I have come across a snake: brownish color (aren't they all ), but the striking feature was an extremely bright yellow patch on top of a a triangular-shaped head (again, pretty standard). It was a juvenile. I have done a bit of looking on google but cannot find pictures that match exactly what I saw. I assume it is either a Chinese Keeled ratsnake (Chugoku-Syuda) or a Yonaguni keeled ratsnake (Yonaguni-Syuda). I saw it by a small pool of water full of tadpoles. I assume it is feeding of

Nowadays, regardless of how remote of an island you go to, you'll end-up with heaps of platic rubbish washing ashore. Long gone are those paradisiac islands of movies. People use rivers as sewers, rivers go to the ocean, and you end-up with this situation. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/04/14/ntm.garbage.island.cnn

Mamabear, glad the positives far outweighted the negatives in the end.

Gosh Mamabear, this is just plain shocking and wrong. How low can they go ??? Attack a 10 yr old and then have a go at mum! I can't believe the number of bad incidents that happened to you over there and how you always manage to stay positive! I almost get the feeling that this type of incident is considered as banal given the people you end-up interacting with. I wish you could have gone to the local police box (wake-up the Gaijin working who is apparently bored cos nothing happens) and file a complaint for assault against this knob. Sadly the revival of this discussion has just mad

wasabi ice cream

Lucky man TB, I always wanted to do that. But that's what Ningaloo reef is famous for and it delivers.

You do not have great mountains nearby, but you have Ningaloo Reef fairly close by though.

I guess a lot of it is a matter of perception, which itself depends a lot on your background or culture. I do notice that quite a few anglo-saxon countries seem to have a culture of binge drinking. Not everybody reacts the same way when drunk, but the more drunks you have the more likely you are to have problems. It seems that in Australia, in order to be respected you either have to be really good at some kind of sport or be able to absorb vast quantities of alcohol (or both). This is obviously a over-generalization that is not always true but this is what people who live there have

I think they will mostly ignore you as long as they are not harassed. I was told they will charge if agro, but never seen that myself.