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damian

SnowJapan Member
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Posts posted by damian

  1.  Quote:
    Originally posted by Toque:
    I love how we lump people from certain countries into categories. This dude. From the Pacific Northwest. Yah I'm sure he knows what he is talking about. They have a few big hills.. Different dude from Australia or the UK and automatically have to go on the defensive
    Bloody hell, so that's what I get for making an effort to be nice in response to a query that initially cracked me up.

    From now on, I am maintaining a constantly rude approach. It keeps Beanie happy. \:\)
  2. >was all with jumars in my day…

     

    Wow, ok. Yet another insertion of cool gear (and age) talk for engineering your personal image projection. Your childhood must have really fuggin sucked, taken off the tit too early I suspect.

     

    All of this simply because your fourth question stuck out to me as being quite odd, a disconcerting enquiry to base a risk decision upon:

     

     Quote:
    if planning some offpiste fun, is it pre-avalanched (as in US) or should I bring my shovel & beeps?
    Off piste in Japan is really safe, you can leave you 'beeps' and shovel at home and ride it by yourself without fear of death or injury. You don't even need your box of matches.

     

    Go get it legend.

     

    (don't worry, when all the dudes in the Japanese time zone get out of bed in a few hours they will be much kinder to you. They are the nice ones. I am pretty much the only arsehole around here. When I am too rude they usually tell me where to go)

  3. This is fun, don't take it too seriously.

     

    The 'not listening' comment was specifically referring to the off-piste advice that I gave, which was my response to your initial misguided basis for risk judgements, subsequently confirmed by your name dropping of places, people and equipment. Basic fact: if I were even thinking about visiting a country to do a bit of off-piste, I would take the basic avalanche gear without a second thought, and that includes a riding partner. I certainly wouldn't ask about it on a forum for the purpose of projecting an image of myself.

     

    BTW, we do know your experience, you told us yourself: you have done an intro BC course with a guy I have climbed and ridden from the summit of Mont Blanc with, you have done 'the' avalanche course, done a bit of heli-boarding, you know about common-as-dirt Chamonix safety equipment (likely because you had an hour or so on the Mer de Glace doing half arsed and unrealistic crevasse rescue practice) and you said something to do with Terje. On the other hand, besides one little hint just provided, you don't know anything about me. Truth is, about me there isn't really much to know, just enough to make me giggle when you started flinging names and places and apparently hardcore equipment talk around ;\)

     

    More on gear (having read Jib's clarification):

    If you have time and the energy, shopping for gear in Tokyo is a much better proposition to London, which for such a big place has bugger all variety and incredibly bad value and dickheads working in most shops. If you don't plan of passing through Tokyo for a day, I can't comment other than what Fattwins already said. Knowing Japan as it is, the end of Feb is just late enough for big "last seasons gear" discounts to start appearing. This is Japan so 06/07 gear will be old and untrendy by about, oh, mid season.

  4. "Tolerance" is in itself a word with very negative underpinnings.

     

    When used by Aussies (a certain type of Australian), Tolerance means: you are not like me and you will probably never be like me, we teased you at school but as we grew up we stopped. When you are not around we call you wogs and nips and laugh at you. We would prefer it if you built your imported non-white culture in your own suburban enclaves. But you are welcome to live here without us (whites Anglos) openly hating you in public. We are not like that, we for the most don't hate you, we just tolerate you. And we pat ourselves on the back as though our tolerance is a virtue.

     

    Tolerance is a very negative word. My partner is a Japanese girl, not an Anglo Australian like me. Does that mean I 'tolerate' her in the same way that many freckled suntanned Aussies tolerate other Asians in Australia? Of course it doesn't, but Australia is so fast to spout on about their 'tolerance'. It only seems like a big deal to the tolerant whitebread Aussies because they know what they are really feeling underneath.

     

    Having said that:

     

    - In our short life spans, tolerance is better than an absence of tolerance, although it in the end leads to deeper rooted problems.

    - I am honest enough to say that I am not tolerant: there are a minority of migrants and Anglo Saxons alike living in Australia who have no right to do so, they are scum. I don't tolerate their cultural bad habits in the least.

    - In 2000 I met a girl in Sydney who was the daughter of an Islamic family. She was firmly embedded in the very seedy Oxford Street gay drug scene. We had brief 'relations', she was a very dirty girl, naughtier than you can imagine. During more sedate moments we discussed the Christian-Islamic conflict and I passed comment that I didn't understand Islamic fanaticism to which she answered "that's why we will never, ever, beat them".

  5. >my question was whether in-bound non-groomed riding... was plentiful

     

    Yes, very plentiful. But:

     

    - Off-piste in-bound resort skiing is totally banned in nearly every resort in Japan. It is the exact opposite to France.

    - It is almost never blasted/avalanche controlled. You can conservatively assume that there is none.

    - The second you step off-piste you are potentially in avalanche terrain and should always carry the appropriate equipment, irrespective of whether it is controlled and only 50m off the groomed run, in France, Whistler or Japan.

    - As for carrying your 'beeps' and shovel: what about your probe? And in the event of your own burial, were you planning on finding and then digging yourself up ;\)

  6. I have seen a number of towns and cities in Germany over the last week and all have displayed the first natural, warm and tasteful Christmas decorations that I have seen in 34 years.

     

    I couldn't care either way about xmas, but I take my hat off to the Germans for their ability to generate true seasonal community atmosphere and use decorations that are what we all imagined when we were little kids. Quite unlike the Corporation of London's Christmas decorations, which a few years ago depicted cartoon characters from the latest Hollywood animated movie (I shit you not).

     

    Pity its almost 16 degrees here and not blanketed in snow like it was this time last year.

  7. Emergency blankets are useless.

     

    Really good kit, but not as small and compact even though it is vacuum packed. Its the size of a VCR cassette.

    http://www.blizzardprotectionsystems.com/acatalog/detail_bag.html

    AK - if you unpack it then you will never get it as vacuum compact again. By virtue of their design (multi-layer cell construction with air pockets) they don't stay all stuck together like fine layers of space blanket does. Rather they naturally expand.

     

    A Sam splint is a very adaptable splint can be used in all sorts of ways to immobilise injuries of bone, tendon, muscle. It is very light and the packaging is the size of a medium apple.

    http://www.sammedical.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/SamSite.woa/wa/Products/Splint

     

    Duct tape on blisters doesn't hurt, it sticks really well and covers the whole sore area in a protective thick surface that has almost no friction since it is so smooth. Plus it means you can triple the application of one item in your pack.

     

    I really recommend carrying a micro gas burner and gas tank. Getting hot tea into you when you are feeling in the shit is a huge moral boost.

  8. Regarding European terrain, snow etc: in early and mid winter, I would rather tour backcountry in Japan (Honshu), no question. In late winter and spring I wouldn't waste a day in Japan. Europe rules with uncountable couloirs and faces with up to1200m vertical drop at 45-55 degrees, many rideable well into June.

     

    In terms of resorts: (not my personal motivation) Japan has mostly crumby resorts with oppressive off-piste attitudes and atmosphere. I'd prefer Europe over doing short repetitive laps on Japanese groomers that resembled busy slow moving highways with snowboarders sitting in the middle and a bowl of curry rice at the end (only available between the hours of 12 and 2pm)

  9. I couldn't make it to the end of the interview. That American guy's voice is likely the worst thing I have ever heard. He sounds just plain awful and why people voluntarily download that kind of stuff and inject it into their heads via iPod ear buds is beyond me. Andrew, you did well coping with his voice. After the first few moments I would have asked if he was for real and hung up before getting an answer.

  10. Jesus! That a lot of stuff for winter. All you need is enough to stop the situation getting worse, and you can use spare clothing for a lot of things, like applying pressure to a bleeding wound, strapping etc

     

    I have:

     

    Triangle bandage,

    elastic bandage,

    Sam splint (vital),

    mixed pain killers,

    a couple of bandaids.

     

    That's it.

     

    I used to carry sports tape for sprain strapping and for blisters (bandaids are often useless), but now I just use duct tape for blisters, strapping, clothing and gear repair etc.

     

    And I don't use a big bag that pre-packaged first aid kits come in. Just use a mini light weight waterproof stuff sack. Those things are awesome.

     

    I also carry an vacuum sealed emergency sleeping bag that I have linked to several times on this forum. Plus mini gas burner and gas tank, sugar, tea bags, alu cup. Just in case I go down in an avalanche I also carry a spare light weight fleece beanie and gloves and spare thermal underwear top and bottom. I can fit all of it into something the size of your first aid bag.

     

    As for poo in the back country: you really should carry it and your toilet paper back out with you.

  11. Imagine you had an accident that put you in a coma and when you wake up you don't remember the accident and:

     

    1. you can't feel anything, not even the bed you are lying on.

    2. you have a sense of motion from your ears

    3. you are blind, everything is black

    4. you can hear

    5. you can't smell

    6. you are perfectly intelligent and mentally normal.

    7. you can't move a muscle besides involuntary actions like breathing, heart beat etc.

    8. you are fed and toileted via tubes.

    9. you can't speak.

     

    Do you think you would believe you were:

     

    a. alive, just really fugged up

    b. dead

    c. dreaming

    d. chronically insane

     

    This has been messing with my head all week. I think I'd consider myself dead or incredibly insane.

     

    The only problem with life is that it stops you from knowing so many other things.

  12. >I love skiing with extra wieght in the deep pow. I sink down and get even deeper pow oh joy!

     

    This is a skier proving once and for all that compared to surfing pow on a snowboard, skiing powder on skis sucks so bad that the only way get a little bit fun is to make it suck even more. It is truly perverted gimp logic: when all chances of healthy soaring-heart happiness are gone, revert to self destructive deprivation and humiliation.

     

    Riding pow is like sex more than we realise.

     

    Bottom line: if you are not snowboarding on pow, you are a perverted unhappy gimp.

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