Plucky

Ya big-will, I do live near there. The only reason I go there is because of the ski club I work for. I don't have much of a choice on the matter. Gotta make the members happy. Hey, I always have a good time, just not my favorite place.

I wish SF - just another tough day at the office. My second job is coordinating ski trips for 125 members of the 'Mogul Masher' ski club here. I tend to get a bit loopy after a full day of 'real' work and then doing club stuff all night. I hope nobody on here takes me too seriously - I'm usually multitasking between doing input on an access database, returning the 20 or so emails I get, and trying to post on here. I really would love to contribute some maps and reviews to this site but it's going to have to wait until this Summer. I just finished a great map of the Tohoku ski areas for ba

Oh,,,,,c'mon, just a bit??? Again, thanks for all you do. We'll keep it clean. Right BAROK? RIGHT?

....uh, til 5 AM! HAHAHAH, ughhhh, 'was that a tree - didn't feel it - hey, what's that whooshing sound in my pack? Crap! the beer is leaking! The beer is leaking! Thank God/Buddah/Neptune/Alah/et.al there is a beer machine down below. can't let that tree get away with that stuff. Angry Man - you're mine!

Hey man, you're just quoting a movie! No need to keep it clean. this board needs a little nastiness - and you are the man to provide it. get it on you nasty boy! good movie though. enough on that. Thanks for robbing the thread barok

I just started surf season up for myself - in a complete snowstorm. Luckily, I have the gear for it. I'm curious - what do you do besides ski/board? Do you partake in any other activities during the winter? What about the summer. Feel free to reply with whatever you do during the year.

Not crowded at all. The only exception would be Appi. 'The tourist destination up north' for the Tokyo jetset. Don't know why - the place sucks. Besides that, uncommonly uncrowded. Good for us!

That's what I meant Goemon, been awhile since I saw that. I need to order it...Amazon here I come!

endzero - I have seen a few of them up here too, but not very many. Usually a group of 3 or 4 guys just ripping. For the most part, what I said holds true (at 8:36PM - could change ) so, you're from Seattle? Baker? in the summers? I'd love to get up there when I visit my home in Oregon. When people say, 'oh, Oregon is beautiful', I correct them and say, 'you mean Washington?'. I send them up there. We gotta keep the state pristine. We already have enough Cali trash up here

barok ...a crazy muthaf***** named gusto, I f*** your wife like the biatch is a ...... hell yeah, great movie! the only movie I liked that Chris what's his name in. He usually annoys the shit out of me. I got sweat on my ......sweat on my....

Have you been on the slopes lately and watched Japanese skiers? They ski so rigid and try to attain that 'perfect 80's skier form'. I know this doesn't apply to them all, but next time you're up, look for a ski school or race team and watch them. It's pretty funny. I think the guys that want to be more fluid and free go to boarding - I haven't seen too many Japanese 'freeskiers' up in the north here - except at Hakkoda. The way I see it, you have 4 types of sliders in Japan. 1) Skiers - adhere to traditions and form. See skiing as a disciplined sport. 2)Boarders - the newer genera

Gotta go with Fattwins on this one. Nothing like not being able to see your tracks on the last run. Happened to us last week and it was epic! Sun is good in the spring but puts that damn crust on the fresh stuff pretty fast.

I've been to the Shiz around 10 times in the last two years and I don't think I've had a very good day there yet. It's always too icy, too windy, TOO groomed, too crowded, too little snow, etc... I may just have bad luck there and I encourage you to structure your own opinion about the place. Post on here once you get back. The women's downhill has NEVER been open when I've been there and that is always on weekends. I went there about a month ago and a lot of runs were closed. We did find a run with a nice powder stash that was untracked. But, once we skied it twice, the hordes came

Beer at lunch is a must! Always! and then on the slopes after lunch, and then on the way home, and then....well, you get the picture. The slopes are usually uncrowded after lunch anyway. Everyone else is drunk, so you might as well join the party! Actually, I always get drunk on accident. I love watching the automatic beer machines pour a perfect mug of beer with a perfect head. After watching 10 or 12 times, I usually have trouble finding my skis. Last time I did this I had one Rossi 169cm and one Volkl 190cm. That was interesting!

Timely topic Ripper. I need a dogsitter next weekend. Think the Royal Hachimantai will let me bring the mutt along? What are you doing that weekend? Feel like making 5 bucks? Cheeseman - I just pulled out two huge bags of cheese from my fridge that have been in there for a few weeks. They got lost under the Quesedillas. Some sharp cheddar and some white stuff - I think it used to be yellow. Send me your address and I'll mail it out to you. addendum - Ripper got his name by consuming large quantities of cheese the other weekend. It was leftover from a ski club party. Beer and

Last year the snow was pretty thin around that time. Grass patches and rocks everywhere. If you are going to take a trip to that region, there are some better resorts that get more snow that I think are a lot more fun. I personally do not like Shizukuishi - it is too flat, too boring, absolutely no trees to ski and there are too many ski school kids littering the slopes. The only run with any redeeming quality is the men's downhill and that is only if you go balls out down it. What kind of skiing/boarding do you like to do?

It just seemed, actually, did happen earlier, that the resorts I frequented updated every 3 hours. Now they don't. Not a big deal.... My whole point was, how did Hach lose 10 cm after 3 days of dumpage. That was all. Why aren't you up skiing/boarding dammit? Do it for those of us that are hurting and report back!

SJ - the database may get updated, but the resorts may not report but once every 24. This is absolutely no way a cut at you at all. I realize and I hope other readers do to that SJ just reports what they are given. I commend them on the monumental effort to pull all of Japan together to create this site! That was never the question. Just hoping I could tap someone out there who had an inside as to how these crazy guys read snow depth. Plain and simple. And, Ocean has a very good point on this. BUT, do not blame this site. Again, they are just the messengers. Thank goodn

strong winds - and not the kind Ocean talks about. I can be warm and cozy, get on a lift and a minute later I'm freezing because of the wind. Besides that, the struggles are worth it.

From my experience (or lack thereof), most resorts new snow and base gets reported around 5PM on this site (for Aomori and Iwate). It seemed at the beginning of the year they reported about 1-3 times per day, but that has slowed down. I know, for a fact, that Hachimantai Forest got dumped on for the last 3 days. I was there. That's why I was so surprised to see a decrease in snow accumulation. It happened earlier this year after a weekend at Hakkoda. It snowed, and snowed and snowed. We had over 70cm on our truck. I get home and for the next two days Hakkoda reported losses in snow.

Indosnm - you surf too? don't want to hijack the thread, but rare to find another gaijin surfer here. What do you ride? where? I'll be out in the water in about a month (Hachinohe north - some rock reef but mostly beach break on my boards). I usually would wish ski season would last indefinately, but this year, with my bum knee, I can't wait for surf season to arrive. Skiing is my first love and what I do best, but surf is right there. Japan just has it all brah! (water temp = 5c, air temp = - 4c, snow on beach = .5 meter - yikes! not the best for surf!)

I have a few trips planned for May on the weekends. If it keeps on snowing, maybe in to June. I'm doing a lot of backcountry Hakkoda tours this spring and hopefully a few down south. My big plan is to ski the open face on Mt Iwate sometime this spring. As far as resorts - I think the Japanese get skied out by late March, mid-April. How can a resort open with 30cm of snow but close with 70? No demand. If I remember correctly, crowds had really declined in to early March last year. I love powder, but corn is great too. Great time of the year to get your days in - and the weather i

Thanks for the reply FREAK! haha, just kidding. Really do appreciate the input though. I'm from Oregon and there they do snow depth checks every week in the more remote places for water quality, summer runoff reports, how the resovoirs will be...etc.... At the resorts, however, they do them somewhere around the base area, away from the lodge and lifts and trails. Each resort has there own way of doing things, but usually they turn up pretty accurate results. At one resort where I know some people, I had the privledge of going with them to watch them get the 'base' for the day. It was in

Since a lot of us on here are from different parts of the world, I was wondering how resorts in your area measure snow depth, base, etc. Japan seems very fickle and inconsistent in this area, at least the resorts I frequent. For instance, I was at Hachimantai yesterday and it snowed all day long. The report says they lost 10 cm. I can tell you, it was cold, windy and snowy for the entire day (with incredible powder!) and I don't see how on God's green Earth they lost snow. In the NW US snow depth is measured in an area 'where the snow is allowed to settle free'. I pulled that from

Sorry everyone, I meant % not degrees. I was using a clinometer at work all last week and had degrees on my mind. I'll get back to all of your emails tomorrow. I've been too busy with local ski club business in the evenings to be online much at all this week. Did this snow storm hammer any of the resorts down south hard at all? It started snowing here at about 5pm and is still coming down. The radar looks promising for overnight too. take care all!