spook

Originally Posted By: Mamabear I also love that Papa and I have that in common and go hit the slopes without the kids too - I think our friendship part of our relationship is stronger since we started sliding. Even when you're screaming at him to hurry the hell up...?

Nice pics MB. It's rad that your boys want to shred with you.

8/10 for me. 24 days on the hill. A couple of those days were as good as anything I've ever ridden. The missus is shredding too. Awesome being able to belt down the mountain together. Mucho happy. Already looking forward to next season.

Originally Posted By: RobBright what settings did you use for this? I shot on Aperture Priority, trying to get as fast a shutter speed as possibile. Something like f4, 1/250, ISO 200. Try and get the eyes sharp. Obviously touched the photo up a bit later to bring out some colours, but nothing too extreme. The photo is pretty much how we shot it.

Cheers Sjers. Stoked you like the pics. Always nice to get some good feedback. Originally Posted By: Creek Boy I was wondering how your season went Spook - those pics are really nice...especially your action pics. Sweet! How long were the runs over there in the trees? Was it something you lapped up? Tracked out quickly on those monster dump days? The Myoko resorts were medium/largish by Japanese standards. Still very small compared to something in North America, let alone Europe. The lift systems are excellent though. Best lift layout I've seen in Japan. The tree runs at Ak

One thing I would say, is that some areas of the resorts aren’t as steep as you’d like. They’re not flat by any means, but a slightly steeper pitch would be good. Of course, there are some very steep sections and runs through the trees, but if it was just a tad steeper overall, a ton more terrain would open up. Also, there’s some serious gullies and valleys offpiste, which hinder where you can and can’t go. (rush hour in town) Conditions warmed up during the last few days of our stay, but apparently it was one of the better winters in Myoko and Niigata for a while. I

OK, I’ve been meaning to get this TR done for a few months now but it’s been delayed. It’s here now though. It's a bit of a long one. Hope you like it. This winter (mid-Jan to mid-Feb) we were lucky enough to spend over a month in Japan. This was our fourth trip to Japan, and armed with more time than money we flew into Japan with no fixed plan. There were a few resorts in Niigata that we were keen to check out and we wanted to keep some flexibility in our schedules. (Nagano station) (on the hill...) First stop was Myoko. Our first day on the hi

Damn. That is pricey. I'll keep looking.

Yeah. Gonna do some this week. I have been tied up and busy with a bunch of other stuff. Plus I am extraordinarily lazy. Soon. Promise.

Can you choose the voice? And how sexy are we talking? Anyone have any experience renting a campervan in Japan. Not one of the ridiculously huge Winnebago style ones, but a medium sized one? At a bunch of different resorts in Japan I've seen them parked up in the carparks. Normally I would never consider a campervan snow trip, but you could have a nice hot onsen after a day on the slopes, so it wouldn't be too bad. I was thinking they'd be good in terms of visiting remote/far flung resorts. Ride some quiet places for 4-5 days and sleep in the van, then check into a hotel on the slo

What's wrong with just using a road map?

When I was in Myoko the dispute was still on. It doesn't matter though. There's a bit of fun stuff in Onsen, but mostly I would just stick to Kanko. You can ride the better steep stuff at Onsen and they cut back to the Kano lifts anyway..

cheers mitch. stoked you like the pics hmm. seem to having problems linking pics in from facebook. maybe fb hae changed something with their site. anyway, here's a couple of shots from last week if you want to see more, search for "Pitstop Hill Mentawai" on facebook and sign up as a fan. I upload a bunch of pics every fortnight.

padang seems to be cranking along fine. i don't want to sound callous, as many people died in the quake, and many are still affected by it, but it appears to be business as usual. there's a lot of building down, and some areas are pretty destroyed, but it's always been a hodge-podge 3rd world city an it doesn't seem much different now. just a bit more mess and carnage than usual. pariaman (a small city to the north) is apparently much much worse, with something like 90% of buildings destroyed. still, i'm kinda sketching out in padang. if i have to go into a big building, i'm keeping a fi

just got into padang and the trip was an absolute breeze. using speedboats is so much better than the ferry. what was the better part of half a day and a night worth of travel is now just an afternoon. stuffed my face with spicy bbq prawns and fish for dinner, staying in a nice (low-rise) hotel. it ain't so bad.

just had a surf at sideshore rifles. swell was good, tide was good, wind was... not quite there. worth a shot though. i got reatrded drunk last night, was hungover as hell today and kind of rattled out there. it's so damn shallow. the surf looks pretty sick for the next few days and there's no one around. but i got to go to padang to deal with some immigration stuff. very annoying. luckily there's room on some speedboats for both crossing, but still - 5 hour trip each way, 3 nights in padang just to get a photo taken and do some fingerprint. they already have my photo and fingerprints. boo.

that bottom pic is my best mate, with the boys hooting him from the shoulder. haven't seen him for two years, so was pretty rad to nail that shot of him

hey hey so i've been trying to link some pics from facebook t this thread, but have had zero joy. i'd like to post a bunch of pics but will have to settle for the ones below instead. these are from the last two weeks in the mentawais. the waves have been fun if nothing off the hook. there have been some nuts sessions, but for the most part it's just been good. not that im complaining. i'm happy as larry (whoever he is) yeuw!

cheers indo. i tried to link some facebook pics into here last night but it didn't seem to be working. about to head out for a surf now, will try again tonight...

Ah, you're one of those glass half full people Monkeys are good. Matsumoto is great too.

such as sit inside and moan about the weather. for all those who would ski in the rain - if you went on a beach holiday, would you try and sunbake in a thunderstorm?

the beauty of a season pass is that once you've paid for it, it doesn't cost you anything to ride i had one this year, and there were a couple of crappy days with rain and/or bulletproof. but i could still go up, do 3 or 4 runs, get some fresh air and then head back to the lodge if i was buying day passes there's no way i would have gone up the hill

i wouldn't ski in the rain or on snot if it was free. it's just no fun for me. i live in oz, and have traveled to nagano in the past and have not gone out on the hill for a few days due to rain or ice. just cos i'm there does mean i want to do it conditions are bad

beautiful light in the first shot mike. bummer bout the rain though

It sounds like a question. South Africa. It's possible?