RockyV

It sounds like you got a raw deal, I'm not sure if it is the same guy or not (maybe a relative) but there is an olympic skier from Nozawa by that name. I agree that he should have tried harder to correct your skiing and give you more advice, I know it's easy for me to say in hindsight but why didn't you tell him to "stop", "look at me skiing", "what am I doing wrong", "please correct my mistakes more"?

get a car with 4WD with snow tyres and you will be right, no worries at all, the roads can be icy but as long as you are carefull you will be right. If you look on the net there will be english maps to shiga http://www.shigakogen.gr.jp/english/ which will help, but most signs are in English, do another search on the net for driving in Japan and you will get pictures of road signs etc. Tolls are expensive 7850 one way but cheaper than public transport for 4 people, the rental company should be able to give you directions and a map too, a good site but it's in japanese is http://www.hina

one debit card is fine and one credit card if you like. For major expenses like hotel and lift passes some places will accept your credit card but dont rely on it. Bring cash with you (I think about 50,000 should be enough) and allways keep a 3-40,000 yen in your wallet. It is very easy to get money out from the post office ATM's but don't wait untill you are flat broke and it's 7 o'clock at night and you are dying for a beer and a good feed because you probably won't find anywhere to get cash out. When you are down to your last 20,000 or so make sure you make plans to go to

Karuizawa Prince 1st of November, only 5 weeks away、shiga any time from mid november depending on the snow of course

lost a PDA (Palm t3) with a 1GB mem card, it fell out of my pocket. I guess the hazards of trying to have a dictionary with me everywhere I go. my new one I bought to replace it cost 6man, that was a very expensive ski day. I no longer take it with me when I ski.

I'm not stopping yet, next tue,wed,thur is looking fantastic, shame I have work on tue, but I'm looking forward to wed, thurs and maybe friday into the weekend (who knows at the moment). I'm going tomorrow but mainly to meet some friends and have an onsen, I'm not expecting much in regards to snow quality, of course I will try to make the most out of my time there, but definately not a non stop 8am till 5pm ski day.

as an engineer (mining if anyone is interested) I'm interested to know myself, as we all know it has nothing to do with the temperature, there are many places across the globe consistantly much colder than Japan but Japan wins in terms of snowfall volume. sorry I can not help, but please post your results when you find out. most gaijin in Japan studdied humanities so most probably aren't as interested, but I'm very interested. (not in any way an insult, just that people from different areas of study generally have different points of view)

what annoys me about equiptment is not that beginers have the latest equipment but when beginers are charged money to rent bad equiptment. It is much more prevalent here in Japan than anywhere else I have been to. Here in Japan people who are unaware are ripped off as they pay money for rental skis and boots that should have been thrown out years ago, it's dangerous and just ethically wrong to rent out 15+ year old equiptment

Nozawa, beacuse I have a season pass

shiga kogen has a website http://www.shigakogen.gr.jp/english/

favorable or satisfactory conditions, good is maybe ok too, but make sure you have the "s" on "conditions" ahhh don't you hate grammar, what I said isn't exactly true, if you are Japanese and it is a "help me with english question" then I will explain more, if you speak english and it's a "help me with Japanese question" then you probably aren't interested in english word usage. PS please update your profile with nationality, it helps us know how to help you

I have a day off tomorrow so off to Nozawa to enjoy it's 40+cm of fresh snow (plus hopefully another 40cm tonight) then it warms up for a few days (hontoni sankanshion dayone) then again next sunday the temperature will drop and give us more of the white stuff 20+cm (fingers crossed). In the middle of it all thurday and friday it should hopefully (according to Snow forecast-just renewed my membership by buying this years calendar)snow at the top of the mountain 40+cm including a 29cm dump in 8 hours thurday night. now I know this is only a forecast but in the words of Big Kev "I'm excited"

maybe in for some 大雪　40+cm predicted at the top of Nozawa, over the next few days, fingers crossed

bit disapointed with my efforts this season, basicly was so spoilt by the early season that when it all went bad I didn't go as much. until now it's been about 30days, was hoping on 60 for the season.

Weeeeeeeeeeell, just checked snow forecast and it's looking like Nozawa is going to ger 30+cm right down to the base over the next 2 days! I'm excited.

kintaro, where? zao? how is it up there at the moment?, maybe I will head up in a couple of weeks I need some snow and Nagano isn't so good, spent the day in the rain today

snowglider, is there any chance you can get here earlier? or how about you stay here 4eva.

as I see it now, who knows but the way it is looking is the the end of season will be bad (we still have 2 months, so hopefully I am wrong) the weather has been very warm for over a month now. The middle of April is probably going to be bad everywhere. having said that if you have the right attitude and you don't expect much in regards to snow quality you can have fun anywhere. If you think karuizawa is good then most major places will be reasonable by comparison (hakuba valley, shiga, nozawa or even venturing up north) my advice is not to go to places with easy shinkansen access maybe i

mixed, was fastastic/perfect in the begining, then the last 6 weeks occasionally good, sometimes ok, often below average, the next week is looking bad again mmmm, please please please, we need to do a sacrifice to the snow gods, anyone got a goat we can kill?

resorts should have depth indicators out in the open where the public can see them, this would make it very difficult for them to lie (my hat goes off to Nozawa). I always check the snowdepth when I go to Nozawa and it allways corelates, no lies there.

Im under the impression that most places in the world remove detatachable chairs/pods (double, quad, godola) for a few reasons to add to the reasons above you can be sure you haven't left anyone on the lift, makes maintence and inspection easier, all the above are valid too (longevity, ice/snow, wind bashing the chairs about), it doesn't matter if weather isn't windy or snowy at the time as weather can change quickly, lifties are in the habit of doing it, I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry, it only takes about 10mins.

mmm, I agree this season is a strange one, so who knows from here on out, everyone keep your fingers crossed for a few more huge dumps. December and early Jan was like heaven, I was in disbelief almost every time I skied. Unfortunately since the rain in mid Jan conditions have not recovered, sure there has been the odd good day in the last month, but unforunately in general very uncharacteristic for this time of year. so maybe we will get some big snowfalls sometime soon, keep praying

I agree I don't know how Nagoya got on your list, but I think you should cross that off. most of the others should be fine for proximity to the slopes, basicly 40km takes around an hour, and anymore than 1 hour is too far if you want to ski frequently (therefore maybe Niigata should be crossed off your list too)

the snowboarder is obviously ok, no bruise, not cuts, nothing at all (the story has obviously been overdramitised and if she was hurt they would have said), Americans are just too quick to press charges or sue (one of the many great reasons for being in Japan), I agree the guy shouldn't have done it, and is is a complete looser but come on, can't we just kiss and make up, I can't believe something so small is causing such discusssion and also made TV news! everyone is ok

from Nagano the closest is Iizuna 15mins or togakushi 30mins, bit longer in the snow maybe, that's from my house, depending where you lived nagano might look small on the map, but it can take you 30mins or longer to drive from one side to the other