marnix

Always assumed the south island would be Kyushu or maybe Okinawa. Really looking forward to this upcoming article.

planned to have a party tonight, but cancelled it. Still have 2 on Sat and 1 the week after so there must be at one with some decent spring weather.

But, "Haus Nozawa" there yet. I know some guys from St. Anton who went to Nozawa for a season 5 or 6 years ago, but after 3 weeks there were back in the Crazy Kangaroo for the apresski.

Don't think anyone in St. Anton knows where Nozawa is.

Hope it lasts til Sunday, but the weather forecast gives me the creeps (rain).

a friend of mine drove through La Grave at the beginning of Feb. All the skibums were sitting in the sun in the village (a very bad sign). I hope they got some more snow.

I'll probably be in the skiarea of Kitzbuhel with new years. On a personal note: 1. Try to avoid Kitz on weekends. 2. When visiting Kitz leave you board/skis at home and take your mink coat with you. 3. There are many other resorts around that have way more bc than Kitzbuhel, although the new connection to Westendorf seems an interesting treat. Where are you moving to in Germany?

Quote: Originally posted by Plucky: Here's a pic of Skiland - the farthest north chairlift in the world I don't know where Skiland is but I can find Fairbanks on the map. Comparing that to Riksgransen and Narvik (both well within the artic circle) I am sure Skiland doesn't have the most northern chairlift. And I don't think both named resorts have this either.

I had 11 good days in Austria. Excellent snow and good weather around Christmas and New Year but missed the best dump of the season in Japan though.

Igloo you beat me to saying exactly the same.

From the SJ main page 'info about Hakuba': Hakuba is arguably the most popular winter sports region in Honshu and is a collection of great snow resorts. There are a number of ski areas lined up along a 30-kilometer stretch of mountains. Within the Hakuba village area are found resorts the likes of Happo-one, Iwatake, Tsugaike, Sun Alpina, Goryu, Hakuba 47.... and the list goes on.

still hoping for a good day on the lifts but time is running out.

The times I went out with a guide in Europe I have never seen anyone dig a snowpit. Maybe they completely trust their gut feeling or patrolling reports? But probably the guides are lazy. Might be an explanation why there were some many fatal backcountry accidents this seasons in Europe.

Here in motion. Seb Blackflip

1. it is a bad picture. In the top lefthand you see some people. That was the start and also the take-off point for this jump. We all were taken by surprise by what Seb did. Even Tony Harrington with his 600mm lens was taken by surprise. So Seb went took 5 steps back from the edge and went from nothing to backflip in an instant. He lands somewhere just outside the picture and keeps on skiing. Later I understood that he had done this jump before at an earlier edition of the Cham Snowthrill.

Kagura (4) because of the convenience.

When I got to the top of the top chair skinning up at Kagura yesterday the chair was running. At the bottom it said that it would open this Saturday, but I asked anyway and indeed they were just preparing things for Saturday. A bit of relief that I hadn't done the skinning for nothing but it would have been nice to be able to skip some skinning. Now some new snow would be great! Although spring skiing conditions were good yesterday.

30 meters? Difficult to say. I remeber they came really close a few times. They were shooting film from the helicopter.

Is it just for yourself? Last weekend we stayed at a simple place that was 3000 per person with 3 people in the room. The week before we stayed at komatsu-ya for 4,000 incl breakfast with 2 persons in a room. (02 6985 2720) Both for Saturday night and both walking distance from the Nagasaka gondola. At both locations no one spoke English. don't think there is a backpackers in Nozawa.

had 2, broke 2. I remember hiking in Nepal where people carry around nalgene bottles so they can empty their bottled water bottles in them.

I put them at the end of my poles in case I wanted a quick snack, as I didn't had my backpack with me.

This one is from a better line.

Just after mentioning FT I saw there were 2 persons in the picture. I can imagine he won't be thrilled by this one.

I think Kumapix is right. You should scrape less and check your board whether you scraped off base instead of wax. If you're not racing just scrape gently and ride the rest off. Main thing is that the doesn't stick to your base.