zwelgen

I admire anyone who can do them well, it does look great, esp with a bit of freestyle air in there too. But they hurt my knees lots and they are often icy and big here which sucks. The only thing I like about moguls is if you are cold and have just been carving a long for a while then do a mogul run you are warm and toasty by the end of it.

I wax my skis every now and again, not to go any faster or whatever but just to look after my gear a bit so the base doesnt oxidise . As for sharpening them Im too scared to do it myself incase I screw the edges up but my local place will do it for about 1500 for me. Expensive but on icy days well worth it and dont need to do it much. As an aside Id love it if there was a bit of gear maintainence info on snowjapan, it took a while to work out what the hell to actually do on my skis!

Definately early, esp mid season so you can get a decent park and dont have to walk 20 mins to get back to your car (ie Nozawa). Finish around 3 or later on a good day. I just get too tired and start skiing like crap if I stay later and thats when most injuries seem to occur. I cant seem to stay awake late after skiing either, usually in bed by 11 but was asleep by 8;30pm after last weekend - Im a kid again!

I went last Sunday and was expecting a bit lame but lo and behold driving into Hakuba and seeing the mountains appearing out of the mist all my skepticism was out the window. Esp up the top there was some pretty decent stuff and it was good to give the legs a bit of a work out and new boots a run. However I felt sorry for 2 of my mates who were learning and the hard falls they took but I was having a blast carving it up. But anyone that complains I mean what do you expect? Its the middle of November!!!

Yeah went to 47 on Saturday with half of the Nagano ski population I think. Wow the snow was waaaaay better than I would have imagined, esp after a pretty warm week. I was giving a new pair of boots their first run and WOW what a difference they make! Cant believe Ive been putzing round on my old ones for so long after skiing with the new. Bring on the weekend! 47 on Friday anyone?

I screwed my knee a few years ago and had a lot of the cartilage taken out and then later my ACL replaced. The ligament took AGES and lots of physio to get sorted but I had the arthroscopy jobby and it sorted itself out ok pretty quickly, just needed time to get over the trauma of having my knee pumped with fluid and poked around with the instruments. WARNING. A mate of mine had an arthroscopy in Japan, they kept him in hospital for about 5 days, put him in a full length cast for a few weeks (ie major muscle wasting) and hes still having problems. The same operation back home is day surg

The place where I live gets HUGE amounts of snow, like so much it crushes houses etc if you dont shovel if off the roof, but the roads are almost always fantastic. Ive had only 1 day in 2 winters where I couldnt get where I wanted to go, and usually the road is so good that only the trucks use chains. They have heated roads in the middle of town, sprinklers on the less used roads in town and the snowploughs go out as much as 2 or 3 times a day to deal with the roads. Of course pretty much every car here is 4WD though. Its just suck how they dont grit the roads as ice can be a bit of a problem

It is expensive but living and existing in Japan is too! I mean what else are you going to do with your weekend? Unless you are a student and have study to do theres not much to do for free apart from sitting at home watching tv, but thats going to send you into major depression and sterilisation from your kotatsu so why not be out there doing something? It costs a bit to get set up but its not too hard to find some gear lying around or get some off your mates, I mean you dont HAVE to start with the best gear, and then 4000 or so for a lift ticket - we all know how far 4000 yen goes in Japan a

Dane how do you break skis? I mean what are you doing on them or are you just a fat bastard?!! No offense intended. I had an old old pair and we tried to waste them as much as poss with little success. Mate I am impressesed!

When I first skied powder I hated it, you fall over lots, loose your skis and its not as fast as piste. Then something just clicks! Magic! You float through the softness, you carve wide turns, you glide much more than on piste. Its fantastic! I think a certian appeal to powder is its elusiveness. On any given day you can ski hard fast piste, but a good dry cold powder day is a rare treasure, even rarer when its a weekend and every other pillick hasnt chopped it up. BTW one thing I hate about some (esp Japanese) boarders, they go on a nice steep powder run and slide down on their bac

Yep Im 15 mins drive from Nozawa, my place turns semi-ryokan with mates coming to stay and shovel the snow for me in winter. I often see a van of gaijin boarders at Nozawa - Im the skiier who you guys always yell at to get out of the powder under the lift at the top. We should have a midmorning beer sometime. So van people if you are on the list where do you come from? so a) Iiyama and Nozawa and Hakuba. I hate the road to shiga, esp driving home tired on it.

Wellington Nyuujiirando

I think living depends a lot on how much you are prepared to pay for comfort. When I was a student living here I used to live on about 1/3 of what I do now. To be fair I was studying pretty hard so not going out in the weekend as much as I do now (yes I was a nerd) but I still had a good time. Now that I have a real job (ha ha ha) a bit more money I tend to use it all and wonder how I survived on so little. A lot also depends on people around you. if they are always going out for dinner its hard to say no I am a stingy bastard and am having cup noodles again...etc Just my humble 2 yen wor

I tried XC as they seem to call it here and it sucked. I just couldnt understand what part of it is fun. I mean if you want to get some exercise or whatever its like going for a run, or if you live in some big time snowy places where walking in deep snow is tough then it is a fast way to get from A to B, but it just was boring as hell, tiring and there was no adrenilane pumping at all. I cant see the apeal of it at all - mind you there are sports that are a lot more boring around!

Talking about Kijimadaira its going to go off this weekend. Theyve got some event called slopestyle and there are loads of boarders from all over the world coming to compete in some kind of competition. I know this sounds like lame hype but Im not kidding. There is a webpage, something like slopestyle.com/2002 or something and its got the skinny on it - but why on earth in Kijimadaira? I have no idea.

Hell yeah a skier! Sadly I end up spending most of my time with boarders due to a lack of ski buddies, but last Friday one of my boarder mates binding broke and when I went to have a drink she put on my skis and boots and liked it so much I had to convince her to give them back. Hey boarders how many of you have never tried skiing? You might just have some fun...

I live in Iiyama and I tell you that they start them very very young. Aparently they have kind of harness things where they strap kids in and launch them through the gym so that they can get used to the sensation of flying through the air. Then they just build them up to bigger and bigger jumps. There is usually a smaller jump next to the big monster one that they let people at to start with. And thats about all I know. If you have never stood at the top of one and looked down then got to Nozawa and you ski right past the half way mark on the way down to the gondola from the skyline course. Wh

One thing you should consider is that its a helluva lot easier to get to Hakuba than Shiga. The road to Shiga is nasty, steep, winding and prone to ice and lots of cars leaving at the same time. Esp when your knackered after a hard day its not much fun. Also I found the runs at Shiga werent that long not steep compared to Hakuba. Just my opinion though!