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Reminds me of when Trevor P. went down in France. A life well lived with no regrets...

Re the back, it wasn't very bad, just badly fractured vertibrae. Broke it fooling around bamboo/kendo fighting up on some river rafts on the side of the Shiribetsu river when I was raft guiding... That fall on my ass guaranteed my return to the professional life. I was too irresponsible for the life of goofing off!

Serra, I agree that no one should let their guard down, simply because they are being led around by someone with a badge... But you have to agree that a certain standard has to be upheld with respect to mountain guiding?

In other words, an ARAC course, and a year of riding Niseko doesn't cut it. Might aswell stick that ni cen yen up your ass

Might wanna delve into the credentials of some of the niseko back-country ski guides... Might wanna ask about their training, and compare it to what you'd get from a certified guide in say N. America or the Alps. If they've just completed an ARAC and are calling themselves a guide, run, run away. Ndawg

Unless the dude has his CAA level 2, ACMG or UIAMG, and some real guiding experience, don't take the course. Japan is over run with half assed instructors. Considering that all you officially need is the CAA level 1 to be a RAC instructor, which is basically a cash grab by the cash strapped CAA it's scary. Especially since the CAA basically has a (questionable) no fail pollicy regarding it's courses, especially its CAA courses in Japan (marketing ploy), it's best to keep your spidy senses tingling when you in the classroom. Nate

Fattytwinny, How come you got bumped to 4. Been pissin off the bitches, or just the jaffa's?

Nice, I got 5 stars. Funny that's what my girl gave me last night...

PS, if any of you pow dr's in training can pick out the 10 big generalizations I've made about japan's avi scene and can pick out the one that's most likely to grease your typical naive nisekoite that just walked off a direct flight, you may be the weiner of a discount avi lesson. Natedawg

PS twinnie man, I finally got the Kneissl tankers dude, sooooo stoked. Castle mountain just got 168cms in the past couple of days, so the bc is out, but the terrain still rules! Peace out, Natedawg

Yeah, Niseko is certainly due, and it's only a matter of time. But to be honest, Japan generally gets the most consistantly stable snow packs 2-3 days after a storm I've ever witnessed. Look up coastal snow pack, like whistler and you'll find out what I'm talking about. Niseko is also so increadibly flat that during the dumps, the snow is so unconsolidated, it generally wont do much but sluff, and most of those happen during or after the storm, depending on windyness and a bazzillian other factors... This is not taking into account the effect of all that salt in the snow pack...

Sounds like a sausage fest. How many gaijins dudes can rub wankys in the same room?

snow compaction creates friction and disturbance that should create nice rounded bonded layers. But a big f'n dump on top of that will still be subject to the pre-storm history, depositional history and post storm history. Tracks can be pretty decieving, say a couple of solo tracks. An untrained eye may not notice that those tracks just happened to skirt all the major minefields in that silky smooth line. Then the dude says, yo it didn't go with those tracks, lets rock. and they ski over a nice wind loaded pillow, kicking off something that will only create a step down situation obilit

Also, I finally got the Kneissl tankers... sweet ski. James, you need to get in touch man, the law and me have to have a chittychattty

Yo Daver, Those pow reports have been killing us here in Canada till now, but the avi reports are missing the slope angle for any realy good, slope rippotentiality interpolations. Atleast weve finally had winter here, outta da rain and into da snow. Good ol castlemountain got 160cms so far this week, and it's only tuesday. Also just letting you boys know that there's 2 spots left on the Alpine clubs centennial trip to the St. Elias range. See you there, Natan