damian

Yo Snosurf, I might expand on what toque raised his eyebrow at: Quote: I was hiking Hirafu Peak alone. It had just opened up after being closed due to strong wind, low vis and heavy snowfall Quote: and had no ... avalanche gear Quote: Turned out I was never in any real danger I don't believe in preaching to people about how to equip themselves when off-piste. Once adequately informed, how you tackle the game is your choice and your risk. So FYI, you are playing dangerous games mate and don't appear to know it ("Turned out I was never in any real danger") Strong wi

Hey citizens of Canad(i)a, Please help me with some info.

For no less than 14 hours I sat at my kotatsu and wrote part of a simple computer program that had been eating away at my imagination for a week or two. I am a messy code writer and that causes slow progress in debugging. I couldn't get a certain variable to calculate properly and so from mid afternoon until midnight I spent the time deconstructing the code into to isolate the problem. It still doesn't work properly. This is what I do with my nights and spare days. I bet you wish you were me.

Who would win requires pictures. It is a rule.

Will the 2000yen bbq and beer also include a "Niseko is flat" t-shirt? I'd fly all the way over for the party just for that.

Second that: Aframes + Giro Fuse or 9. They work well together. I have never used those strap adapters for helmets. Never found them necessary at all.

Hey! Thanks EBC, its good to see your story and pictures from the NZ trip. You seemed to maintain pretty good humour and attitude considering that the skiing was all over in 5 days. Pity you fell over that rocky bit. I admit that I had pictured something a little longer. Bit like Beanie said, its enough to break a leg on as it is. The season was a good one in NZ but perhaps you were there before it really kicked off. Your photos are great, but some show the scarcity of snow pack. And it looks hard and windy as well. This looks mildly depressing, but without having been there i

Quote: cross-country skier Wendy Wagner said, "Ski racers are environmentalists. Some of it is related to self interest. No snow means less ski sales, less ski sales means manufacturers have less marketing funds to support elite athletes. It's a vicious cycle, with one more contradiction being that to travel to good snow conditions, skiers usually have to drive gas-guzzling SUVs. The next vehicle I get will be an SUV hybrid.” >No snow means less ski sales... >less ski sales means manufacturers have less marketing funds to support elite athletes.... >It's a vicious cycle Way t

He wouldn't drop a 30m cliff. I think he meant feet, approx 10m I have been over plenty of 3m drops. I would be very picky about the landing if it were any higher.

I probably ate rosukatsu once a week for 104 weeks in a row, or perhaps every second week. I shit you not. I knew every tonkatsu place in akasaka, which one had the best rice or sauce or miso or katsu, offered free rice top ups, best cabbage, mustard quality. If you wanted thinly sliced cabbage, good rice, didn't care about the sauce, hand-ground goma, oily meat: I could recommend one. If you wanted dark miso with tofu bits, didn't care about the rice, wanted quality sauce and no goma, weak sweet mustard, again, I knew which one would meet you needs. Hirekatsu doesn't compare to rosu

It seemed like a good reason to celebrate. Now hold him accountable for his mistakes, the pain and the death that he helped create.

% gradient is crap for a few reasons: 1. It isn't a natural way for the mind to visualise a slope, eg, "for every horizontal unit of travel the slope goes down 36% as much". It isn't intuitive. 2. What happens with slopes greater than 45 degrees? Please try and visualise in your mind how steep a slope is which is marked 119%. You can't, can you. You know its over 45 degrees, and that's about it.

stop using 2. This is a criminal offence: 2 b 2gether

Quote: Originally posted by snosurf: I'm heading to south america in July next year, kicking off a long journey... I want to do a season in Argentina, Surf the Andean coast, Surf Brazil with my brazilian friend, then head up to mexico and central america to surf there with my freind. After that, i'm going up to Utah to spend the season at a resort there, then over to Europe for the summer where i want to travel eastern europe then surf france and morrocco again. At the end of the summer I want to go boarding in Austria until i run out of money and fly back to oz. Of course, there will be

I dont have run in my start menu. I has XP set to look like classic

Quote: Originally posted by thursday: whoops! well spotted spuds. Didn't notice the % sign. I saw "for experts only" so I thought must be steep. Apologies for the gaff. no probs, it was fun ps - my new signature isn't aimed at you personally.

Hakuba has some lamer resort terrain than Niseko, no doubt. Its also got lots of good stuff as well (more than N) The bottom edge of Tsugaike Kogen in Hakuba is the flattest, tamest, most gentle, wide open, forgiving, all round hamster, beginner ski slopes I have ever seen anywhere. I actually taught myself to snowboard there over several weekends. And look what I became: an internet tosser!

The newer Google translator BETA now does an ok J to E job these days (well it isn't great, but at least its better than 3 years ago). Here is the translated reservations page. Looks like xmas and NYE are booked out. web page

Quote: Originally posted by albit: hi my family and i are planning a trip to ski/snowboard japan around december/january. my wife is still coming to terms with how slippery snow is and panics as soon as she gets going. can any one recommend a ski place that has long, very gentle slopes that she would be able to try learning on as most of the beginners slopes we have tried so far (in canada)are too short or become too steep before she is able to get the hang of it. dude, take her to tsugaike kogen in Hakuba. The bottom area is flatter than Niseko. And it stays consistently flat with no c

EBC - Your pictures are the best I have seen in a very long time, those ones from the valley at dawn. I am really impressed. You saw something that gave you a mountain feeling, you picked up the camera and you captured that feeling. Looking at the pictures I feel it, even if it were not your intention. I have no idea if the exposure, composition, shades and blah are correct, probably they aren't. But those things are only important if you want to publish a picture in a magazine. They don't change the enjoyment I get from pictures like yours. You should keep taking pictures, because your

Quote: Originally posted by thursday: 57 degrees, average 40 sustained 500m some steeps here Thursday, you are a well intentioned but uninformed (nice) clown They are PERCENT gradients, not degrees! Seriously, you as an individual must to question the plausibility of a numbers and your interpretation thereof before you post them. Does a resort in Korea really have a 57 degree piste? Does that smell right to you? The formula for converting slope in % to degrees: Degrees = 180/pi * arctan(gradient/100) A gradient of 100% is 45 degrees. In your hopeful ex

Quote: Originally posted by powwwers: I agree with using your card to get cash advances. exchange rates are pretty much what they should be. just remember one thing, if you`re going to use your credit card at a PO, be sure it`s a cc with a PIN for cash advances. No PIN, no cash!!! My first day living in Japan, didn't have any cash, went to Post Office, put card in slot, machine wouldn't take my CBA Visa 8 digit pin, no cash for me. Very few cards have 8 digit pins, I have no idea why that one did. ATM convenience is very low relative to Australia - some are closed on Sundays and aft

I'd just like to say I am sorry for the above post.

That's a tough one. I had a look around here but couldn't find anything. ps - I hope you have suitably low expectations.

Quote: Originally posted by Fattwins: that made me chuckle really. I class it a bit different than db though 35 to 45 depending on features etc is steep and above 45 is usally always no fall steep, depending on the location. for example a 50 degree treed slope with no drops is way easier than a 40 degree slope with drop features. 55 requires really good conditions under your edges, no playing around either. Its actually hard to find it in quantity. I reckon the most I have had on it was 150m of vert, than backing off to 50, 48, 45, back to 50, etc with a long run out of 40 (which fee