marnix

there is the crossgame series in Japan for example at Kandatsu 25 March

Who wants to go to Kitzbuhel anyway! But that is exactly what I mean near larger cities. From Munich many people have cabins in austria where they go to for the weekend or go to Austria just for a day. Still a little further away in Austria like Serfaus, Fiss and even Mayrhofen aren't as busy on Saturdays as on Friday. On the other side in France places like Chamonix, Les2Alpes and Alp d'Huez can get very crowded on Saturdays.

snow temp is very important in selecting the right mixture of wax. at least if you want to win.

Actually in many resorts in Europe have Saturday as the slowest day of the week. As most people have a 1 week vacation booked starting on Saturday and leaving on Saturday. So most people arrive early afternoon and don't go skiing for the day same as people leaving early Saturday morning. If the resort is close to a large city then Saturdays can be busy. The worst day of the week is Sunday as most skilessons start + you have the weekenders. The majority of people going on a wintersports break/ vacation in Europe aren't dedicated skiers and snowboarders, but people who just want to en

price sounds reasonable or is it like the other places where they lift 400 people up the mountain in 2 consecutive days?

What is insanely early for you?

What they do with the cats is: at the bottom of the course they make a snow bump then the cat goes over it and when it titls the huge snowshovel digs into the snow instantly making an hole + fresh snow for another bump.When this is done they make another bump line next to it only with the bumps halway the bumps of the other line. There are 3 problems with these courses. 1. you still need skiers to really make the course. 2. the course will be very straight. 3. the distance between the moguls is usually pretty far. The main advantage is that it is highly symetrical.

skate training involves a lot of cycling during the summer. One of the Dutch guys was in the summer Olympics cycling team 2 years ago.

Scotty Bob's asy tele ski's are very interesting, but now they also have skis for the fixed heel skiers. http://www.scottybob.com/alpine/index.html

as far as I picked up from a guy from Mountain Hardwear some years ago. Waterproof zips aren't really waterproof, as in don't put a watercolom on top of it. They are water resistant. Another problem with those zips is that they work very well when they are straight but loose all water resistant features when bend. Maybe the current generation zips are truly waterproof though.

wow! a Dutch girl made it to the finals of the snowboard halfpipe.

That was the third article I saw mentioning SJ this winter. I think the stickers are working!

don't watch it but do it. It is fun. judging with sports suck. They should get rid of all judged sports in the Olympics.

or hybernating

Yeah, we won gold and silver with the womens speed skating yesterday. That won't be shown here, but tonight is the mens 500m with Kato the current World record holder. This will surely be on NHK.

But can she ski like Aiko?

Yeah that's what they do, but I it is not on my good things list.

Don't forget Miki Ito she was the third Japanese in the finals but placed 20th.

mother-in-law is there to babysit of course, what else are they good for?

What means Olympic caliber? - a course that can be skied by Kenians, Dutch and other exotics. I miss in the list of possible Olympic wintersports: snowshovel racing. It was on the first X-Games but I think it was too tame for them.

I was 4 when I first put on skis. Can't remember much from that experience except that I didn't take lessons after this first week for the next 10 years. Leaning backwards was the way to go! When I was 16 I tried snowboarding for the first time. The easy slope from a skiers perspective suddenly became a rather steep run on a snowboard. I fell on my neck twice but I managed to take the draglift to the top 3 times without falling out. A few years later I learned how to survive on a snowboard.

At least they are out in the snow right now and stuck in Tokyo like me.

I left the girls back in Tokyo. Better for them and much better for me. I will go with the whole (including mother-in-law) to Nozawa the first weekend of March.

Probably posting on Snowjapan.com

same for drinking pastis while speedskiing. So both should be Olympic Sports.