skidaisuki

Creek Boy - I'd go further: morons wearing headphones while skiing or boarding is not a 'trivial irritation'. It's a real safety issue. It also makes no sense to me because the background noise would affect the quality of the sound anyway. I urge people to be smart and not do it, just as they shouldn't do so when cycling at high speed along urban streets in Japan. Plain stupidity - and definitely not the same as listening to a little quiet music in a car. How often do you see car drivers wearing headphones?

Ahhh..... http://www.jma.go.jp/en/week/index.html That - from Wednesday - is what I like to see

Oyuki - it's a matter of safety. Wherever you are, whoever you are with, I think it's a bad idea to dull one of the senses that you need when you are riding on a board or skis at a speed where you can do yourself or somebody else a serious injury. I agree that piped J-Pop on the lifts is crap, but it doesn't remove your ability to hear most of what's around you... Not 'square' - common sense.

Riding with headphones + music makes as much sense as riding a bike listening to your i-pod - i.e. a daft idea. For boarders (or skiiers) to do it makes you about as cool as that Japanese boy boarder **** in the last winter Olympics. A dork

Thanks Coldcat, you're doing a good job that helps a lot of people. It would certainly be a useful complement to the Niseko Now reports, though I suspect those'll be being updated pretty regularly from now on...

Looks like it's snowing in the 'seko this afternoon....

Depends how much snow Japan gets in the next 2-3 weeks. A bit more and I am lucky enough to be able to jump on the shink at a weekend, anytime.

Uh-oh. The usual minefield when it comes to generalising about nationalities. In my experience there are good people and a**eholes from every nationality, without exception. The British certainly have their share of both. But approach a Briton with a friendly smile and most of the time they'll reciprocate

WantToSki - that seems like boasting at first. Then I realise...I'm going where the conditions are best at the time, not where I can book the hotels months in advance....

Parksie - a lot of the backpacker places in Hakuba have their own vans to drive you around, so if you ask nicely and if it suits them you won't have to even wait for a shuttle or pay for a taxi. Perhaps Fattwins gaff can do that. Ralph - not sure. Oshogatsu itself is usually a bit quieter than other times as most of the Japanese skiiers are at home celebrating. Ichinose is my recommendation overall. Not very exciting for nightlife, but you should be so tired with all the good skiing / boarding to be had that it won't matter

Creek Boy - that has great potential to be ski porn. All you need is an onsen and a bottle of whisky

Yellow Snow - good for you, but since you've decided 100 percent, why bother asking anyone's opinion about the consequences? You've decided to face them regardless. Apart from being banned from a few onsens and sports clubs, I suspect the consequences won't be very serious. And you'll never be short of a conversation starter at parties - believe me, my friends bore people silly with their now-defunct band names etc. Just remember - 13 NOT 31

Yellow Snow - I wouldn't get one anyway if I were you. Nothing to do with onsens.

looks like it's above freezing in Niseko today...

The other thought is the resorts in Karuizawa (even closer time wise to Tokyo but on the Nagano shinkansen). Same problem as Gala though - and few posters here rate the ski-jos in Karuizawa as much good. Short and boring is the general rule. If you can do an overnight trip and money's not such an issue you could easily go to Hakuba (via Nagano on the same shinkansen route). In a group you could share a taxi from Nagano and be skiing mid-morning from Tokyo on a Saturday.

I agree that Gala's most convenient but Rag-Doll's advice about Mitsumata is spot on, as Gala gets crowded precisely because it's so convenient....

Haven't had the same experience, but I have been on a lift when the snow combined with fog were such that I could barely see my own skis below me. That was weird and freaky - especially the way such conditions deaden sounds you normally hear

Coldcat - sorry to be pedantic, but you stated that for a consensus, ALL scientists have to agree. That's not what a consensus means. There are people arguing, stupidly, that the earth is flat. That doesn't mean that there's no consensus on the matter, I agree with you. Just because some scientists are arguing against global warming doesn't mean that most accept it as demonstrable fact. A completely separate question is whether, and to what extent, human activity is contributing to it. I believe that we are having an impact, and this also ties into questions of how we use the wor

"Consensus is when ALL scientists agree, which is obviously not the case with global warming" Coldcat - sorry, that's not correct. Perhaps you misunderstand but the definition of a consensus is not 100 percent agreement between all members of a group, but the general balance of opinion: "General agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action." It is said that there is a consensus on Global warming amongst those scientists. There are always going to be some scientists with an opposing vi

Coldcat - once again, agreed. The trouble is, the potential costs of doing nothing are far greater than those of taking action. Either course may be the wrong one, but I know which one I would prefer. Science is indeed about being objective, which is why I tend to go with the consensus of scientists who have looked at GW and concluded that it is a real phonomenon that needs to be addressed. How, not whether, we address it is the question.

2 C and snow in Asahikawa this morning. Love it. Looking forward to the new reports today. The contrast between the 2 photos on the Niseko now webcams (upper slopes on saturday and lower slopes today) says it all...

Coldcat: "a little skepticism is healthy" Totally agreed. I am healthily skeptical about those who argue against global warming when their research is funded by oil companies, whose interests are not served by everyone cutting oil consumption 50 percent tomorrow. I agree that it is a very complex issue and talking about one or two seasons in New Zealand when glaciers get bigger shouldn't be enough to distract anyone from the long term issues. I personally don't want mankind to take chances on being wrong. Short of a killer meteorite hitting us, he very future of the earth may

On a slightly more trivial note, I remember some speculation last year that due to less ice in the Sea of Okhotsk, there was more evaporation, resulting in higher snowfall in Hokkaido. So perhaps we should be in favour of it!

Rag-Doll - global warming is a reality. The debate is over what its cause is and whether human activity is at least partly responsible for it. That is very difficult to prove. My layman's view is that the earth has only been industrialised to any real extent over the past 100 years or so, and it seems highly probable that burning fossil fuels to the extent that we are doing is having some negative effects. Connect this to the fact that we are using up irreplaceable resources and must find alternatives (whether or not we are causing global warming) and you'll see why this needs to be addres

Nice pics EBC. I've been thinking about going to NZ for a while but those pics have finally convinced me I'll say hi if I bump into you at Hakuba