mrjamie

Hopefully :-)

well then what better opportunity to work on my ability at speeding through tight trees with a wide and long board ?(*^ ·^)??? time to buy a helmet.

from what folks have to say even a 187 seems fittable in the trees, and hopefully I?ll be spending most of my time off piste or at yotei/one of the nupuris. I haven?t decided yet so might end up with the 177 or 167?still waiting for prices on this years model. Niseko doesn?t have the steepest terrain, though it would seem that there are 40°slopes to be found ; but it has more than enough BC and powder for a long board, is what I currently think.

In my opinion Annupuri has more interesting off-piste, especially if you hike from the gate to the peak of the mountain. There are quite a number of routes you can take, all which end up at Annupuri base... and the two natural halfpipes (gulleys) that continue for a few kilometers each mean endless slashing on powder days to finish speeding down powder runs... I remember getting first tracks at Annupuri four or five times last March/April at 12:00pm, 1:00pm etc...!!! I haven't gotten a chance to ride back-bowl yet, or the area between back-bowl and the front face of Hirafu, but Annu

thanks -- I've since found RJ, an American distributor, and Atsushi, the Japanese distributor's phonenumbers/contact information. Atsushi has a 177 05-06, not sure if it's oversized, and RJ is getting 07-08 187 oversizeds in 4 weeks... getting quotes on both, and as soon as it's clear whether or not I'll be working in Niseko next season, opening up the wallet

Hear the only time to hit it is during december-january .. too much snow after that for safe riding. Talked with a NAC guide who went 15-16 times last season, and talked about 'this one part... that's really steep, really nice to ride.' Well, anyone interested in a trip next december-january? New years on shiribetsu?

Yea, I'm currently trying to find an oversize 187 to buy... it's tough

I'll take some pictures of the (non-snow-covered) mountain while I'm up there this week.

Looking at the pictures & the topography in a map I just got the other day, Shiribetsu looks steeper than any mountains in the Niseko Range, steeper even than Yoteizan. I was wondering if anyone had been to this low mountain just east of Yotei? If not maybe I'll do a TR on it this coming week while I hike hokkaido

avalung pack rad-air tanker 177 board burton driver-x boots salomon SPX 90 bindings a chocolate bar with cherry-chili filling

delicious deserts store nearby maru, in the shizen-kan area... but maybe my image of pie is desert and not meat, 'specially since I'm a vegan

Go Native> I haven't been on that gondola run yet... I can't wait to try it out next season! I was thinking of a gondola run at Appi, not at Niseko. Sorry for being confusing.

Besides hiking off piste in Gifu, the only backcountry I've done so far is in Niseko, so that's my favorite area to snowboard so far... As for best 'resort' though, I liked that one in Nagano where you can snowboard under the lift from the top, 'out of bounds'?... After one of the SJ parties, a bunch of people were there that day... there are some fun chutes so close to the piste, so easy to get to! This winter I'll be up at Niseko all winter, learning about giving backcountry tours, so we'll see how I feel about the area after 4 months of snowboarding the same terrain over, and over

Thanks for the article, that was an interesting insight into the world of working in Japan, and a far cry from the images of 'Fear and Trembling (Amélie Nothomb). Since I've accepted an offer to train/work at a BC tour company in Hokkaido this coming winter, I was especially glad to hear that everyone is relaxed. Well, the company I'll likely be working for is headed by a foreigner, but still Speaking of which, I'll be hiking in Hokkaido probably the 1st to the 5th of May, in the Niseko area. Anyone interesting?

aye, samurai forgive me if I sounded a little argumentative; it was not my intention to start an argument, either. I just wanted to clarify on opinion vs. fact of the matter. My 4WD is a standard, so I hike up with snowshoes: MSR shoes fit fine onto my hardboots (mondo size 31...egads), and I'm sure there are other brands as well. Plate Bindings tend to weigh a bit more (depending on the binding) than softboot bindings, so that extra weight on your back when hiking is something you may want to keep in mind. Not that it's ever been an issue.

I don't mean to troll, samurai, but a lot of what you said has other reasons. For example, a lot of the 'pro-filmers' you talk of are famous for their park riding or the big-air they pull during freerides in back country. For both of these, as I've mentioned and so have you, soft boots are much easier if not the only viable option. It's completely plausible then that when these riders appear in videos, they do so in soft-boots (I'd be surprised if many have even ridden hard boots, and I don't mean this as an insult). Furthermore, if the only 'pro-filmers' are the ones who go big in the pa

Mmm, this season was learning how to use the camera, so next season hopefully there will be more hardbooting footage to share with all, unless people are worried that our hardboots might rub off on them... er?! Anyways, Mantas is right -- I use head stratos pro boots, designed in specific for hardboot snowboarding. Deeluxe makes most boots -- but you can check out all that at bomber-online. One thing to keep in mind is that hardboots, though much more comfortable than they look, are huge. Moonboots. Funky.

I finished m'second season with hard boots this year, and I haven't looked back at softies once. Sure, I can't tweak on jumps anymore, but being able to use the same board off and on piste is killer. Personally, I just like the control that I feel when wearing hard boots. Your foot is bolted, more-or-less, to the board, so you really feel the edge in a way I'm not so sure happens with soft boots. There's a wonderful 'pop' you get when you unweight the board between turns, and as it flexes you get a few inches, or maybe a foot, of air before you put down your other edge and lay i

Someone used the front truck from a t-board and put a revenge on the rear of a regular board, read about it here. 'Very surfy' -- i'm eager to try one, uh-huh.

If you're going to stay on the courses, or in areas off course which are designated by gates, and you say you're a mid-level border, I'd suggest Niseko. Having never done Hakuba back country myself, I can't say how much snow it gets, but taking it from what most people here have to say, there's just as much snow in the Hakuba BC as up in Niseko, if not more. But if you're not doing back country, then that doesn't matter much to you, I suppose. Watch out for global warming! Aïe.

That's some delicious looking terrain, thanks for the vid.

Originally Posted By: Fattwins The BC at niseko does not impress. The BC of happo or goryu blows anything else away in hokkaido I don't know how much of Hokkaido you've snowboarded, but I was told that the icon 5 dvd [treat] is shot almost exclusively in niigata and hokkaido, except for the foreign footage. If what I was told is true, there is some pretty gnarly back country in Hokkaido as well.

I don't know how steep, but hiking yotei the runs certainly seemed at least steeper than hirafu @ niseko. I was at Niseko for a month this winter, during Feb/March, and once I discovered (thanks to some Aussies) Annupuri, that is where I gravitated for most of my trip. Traversing Osawa there are some slight steeper runs, and the backside of what I believe is nito or chisenupuri lays covered in a white blanket, sitting, waiting. One day I decided to hit the top of Annupuri and the weather was so fine that I had a perfect view of back bowl. Back bowl looks like the steepest BC terrain

so I finally got around to editing some of the video from hokkaido... we were all beginners to shooting footage, and were more interested at the time in actually riding than shooting, so there's not much and it's nothing astounding. Still, for those of you who didn't get out much or want a taste of winter's chill, and don't mind downloading ~70mb, you can get the video here: http://homepage.mac.com/mrjamie/.Movies/chisenupuri.mov

check out shizenkan backpackers, I was there almost 20 days this month for ~ 60,000 yen.