Snowhaus

Sorry - 70,000 yen

Originally Posted By: Captain Stag That they can have the nerve to try and blame this tragedy on anyone but themselves is shameful. I liked the guides, they were good guys and fun to hang out with and watch ski movies with but someone needs to get prosecuted to send some sort of message to the "guide" industry It's not the guides who are assigning blame elsewhere. For that matter, the locals aren't really laying blame elsewhere per se. It's more that they question anyones wisdom in going out there that day. I'll be honest and say that I fall into that camp myself. I remember that da

SerreChe There's nothing secret about the rumour. It's covered in the book written by the widow of one of the people who died in the avalanche(雪煙 by こすが聖絵). The rumour is that Simon and his group may have inadvertently set off the avalanche that killed those two people. The widow makes a point of saying that no one is ever going to know the truth for sure, and that assigning blame won't bring her husband back. The rumour has been going on since the day of the avalanche, but some of the locals don't feel quite as charitable as the widow, especially since three of the Japanese guides f

Hi everyone, It's been a long, long time since I've been here, so apologies for suddenly butting in on the avie forum... I live up in Aomori and have been skiing Hakkoda for the last 6 years. Love the backcountry, but have been wanting to fill in a few blanks in avalanche knowledge for a while now. I've got an instructor from Nagano willing to run a 5-day advanced avalanche course up at Hakkoda, but am short a couple of people to make minimum numbers and thought I would see if there was anyone here who might be interested. The course would run from 19-23 March, and accommodation

Here's what the Seppo wannabes were doing http://www.toonippo.co.jp/news_too/nto2007/20070216130902.asp It's not clear whether they intended to head down through the trees to the east of the main dozo route, or whether they had decided to head back to the ropeway, but it sounds like the Japanese group was pretty happy to see them - they interviewed one of the survivors on the local TV news up here and she made it clear that more of them might have died if the patrollers hadn't showed up. At this stage it sounds like the investigative team thinks the avalanche was probably set off n

No. We're too busy praying to Huey and eating scroggin to come in from the cold Oh, and Line Motherships (trusty old favourites), Crispis, and G3 Targas. Where in Australia do you ski Puretele?

NPM - what I always do - sit around waiting for it to snow! In the meantime, apparently my function at work is to poke around into other peoples lives, generally act like a busybody, and offer advice to the lovelorn. Typical anego stuff. Oh, and party in Tokyo every few months. Yes, life is good in Tohoku

Scouser, I spent 0-14 in Hong-Kong, then 15 onwards with Australia as my base, but lived and worked off and on in Europe and Japan since finishing uni. Australia is home, but then, so is Japan.

Its interesting reading these posts and hearing how everyone stresses so much about teaching their kids to be bilingual. Makes me wonder if any of this was going through my parents minds when I was growing up. For me, growing up bilingual was easy. My parents just packed me off to the grandparents in Osaka every summer holiday from age 5 to 14. 6 weeks every year with old people who speak no English is an incredibly effective way to get a kid to learn Japanese. Particularly once they get hungry. You start with whining, then figure out おなかすいた. Its all up from there. Doesn't seem to wo

This sounds like loads of fun. I was thinking of checking out Hakuba at some stage and this seemed like the perfect chance. Then I saw the dates. What a bugger that I'll be scuba diving in Maui then. Do you think the organisers could bump it up a week?

It depends what kind of camera and lenses you will be using, and what you want to use it for. If you're going to be hiking out and doing wilderness shots in the middle of nowhere, light may be better. On the other hand, if you're planning on using monster telephoto lenses, you may want something with a bit of weight and stablity behind it. I use a manfrotto with a handy quick release feature on the head. However, if I was buying again, I'd get the version that holds the camera in place a little more secrurely with a secondary lock. Manfrotto make good solid tripods (a little ex

Funny. I've had two leathermen and they have both broken, but I've used the same swiss army knife for 10 years and never had a drama. Could I have just been unlucky??

The author came up to Aomori as a guest speaker for a charity fundraiser last year. He was a very interesting guy, with some interesting insights about Japan. It was clear that he really loves the country, but despairs of some of the things that have happened here...

I DO!!! Most of the time I succeed. But every so often someone will line up the drinks, and I'll be stupid enough to go, 'no worries, it will be different THIS time!'... Look up 'sucker for peer pressure at 2 am' in the dictionary. Thats me in the picture.

Tequila. I have never woken up from a night after tequila shots and wanted to be alive. The next morning always seems to involve bruises, and/or reminders from friends (with photographic evidence) of 'what Snowhaus did last night'...