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ShayDn

SnowJapan Member
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Posts posted by ShayDn

  1. Actually they have one really steep mogul course from the top of the mountain. On a soft day - it's pretty good fun, and the lift is only used for that part of the mountain so you never get any queues. Although you get the occasional falling skier/snowboarder whizzing up to you from behind... and I once had to pull a kid back on to the slope with his pole after he'd slid through the netting at the side of the run :-o

  2. Yup - 100% man made. On the rare occasions that it does actually snow, they get a bit confused and aren't quite sure what to do with it...

     

    The most troubling aspect of it all is how brown and dry the farms next to the slopes (and all around Beijing really). All the water they hoard for making snow could easily help the farms to grow more crops, but hey - people gotta ride right?

     

    There is also an indoor place near Beijing called QiaoBo - hate to think how much energy they consume in Summer when it's 38°C outside and -1°C inside...

  3. Yup, hot wax all the way. I actually find it's as much effort putting the rub-on stuff on as just doing the full-on thing. Get an old iron or a new one that you're not gonna use for clothes - as cheap as possible. This is the process I follow. Get the right temperature wax - there's warm, cold, and very cold. In Japan mostly I find the cold ones are good - -5° to -15°, that kind of range.

     

    1) Drip the wax off the iron onto the base all over, make long straight lines, wiggly lines, whatever - just keep it even.

    2) Run the iron up and down the board to melt the wax and cover the base entirely. This is the part of the process that gets the wax into the base, so spend time making sure the wax has got up to temperature and running freely - but don't overheat your board (just keep it moving and you should be fine)

    3) Let the wax set, give it 30 minutes or so to cool down and harden

    4) Scrape scrape scrape - make sure you've got the wax off your edges, and then scrape as much wax off as you can. It feels like you're scraping it all off, but that's what you want - to leave the wax just filling the pores.

    5) Buff with a stiff plastic brush. I do this lengthwise first, and then I put a cross-hatch pattern in by doing one diagonal and then the other. The rationale behind this is to help guide the melted snow (i.e. water) out from under the base. Not sure if it works or if it's just psychological...

    6) Apply Zardoz Not Wax - this is liquid teflon and soaks into the pores and remaining wax and makes it really slippery.

  4. The ones nearest Beijing are very small and crowded... last resort when I really need to get some turns in.

     

    Doulemeidi and Wanlong are pretty ok - on a par with Karuizawa just about... Safety standards there are pretty good I think. Doulemeidi has the fastest lift in China - a 6-person detachable, very modern. Accommodation ranges from very basic but Cheap (chongli binguan for e.g.) to very expensive but convenient (e.g. Shuanglong at the Wanlong resort)

     

    Wouldn't travel to China for the skiing, but if you're in China it's worth a go. Am looking at Hakubus and thinking that Beijing-Hakuba is a pretty worthwhile trip now with the bus direct from Narita. Bring on the SNOW!

  5. There are actually many places for Beijingers to get a taste of snow life. For the last couple of years there's been a small (~50m?) slope in Chaoyang Park, and there are a myriad of small artificial hills in the outskirts of Beijing (Nanshan, Shijinlong, Yuyang, Yunfoshan, Jundushan etc... etc...). You can ski by the great wall too.

     

    And there's even a nighta option at WanlongBayi - a short bus ride from one of the subway stops in the west of Beijing.

     

    Get further afield and there's some relatively reasonable slopes at Wanlong and Doulemeidi in Chongli county.

     

    Am sure the Bird's nest will introduce a few more people to skiing, but looking at how crowded the slopes are at the weekend, I'm not convinced that's a good thing (for me at least haha).

  6. Head to Ciqikou junction (south from Dongdan) - there's a building on the south-west corner of the junction with a DaZhong electric store sign on it. Inside that building on the second and third floor are a bunch of independent ski/snowboard shops with a good range of stuff and reasonable prices for local brand stuff. Forget major brands though, tends to be really expensive... There's one called Cold Mountain on the 2nd floor, it has a good range of stuff.

  7. I was watching an old Warren Miller film, and saw some guys basically windsurfing on Snow, doing jumps tricks and all sorts. Looked like really good fun, and since I just took up sailing this year, I'm interesting in combining my two favourite sports...

     

    Then I found KiteWing - seems like the perfect opportunity because I can use it with Skis (am not a boarder...) and inline skates in summer... Anybody have any experience with these? Anywhere I can try one out in Japan? They're pretty expensive to take a gamble on... but looks like it would be fun. Imagine being able to sail UP the slope when there's a big queue for the drag lift biggrin biggrin

  8. Has anyone heard-of or tried Coldpole?

     

    It's a ski pole with a removable grip, and you can fill the pole with drinks... Each one holds about 1/2 a pint. Their website mentions that non-alcoholic drinks are not recommended since they'd freeze in the cold :-D

     

    Guess this will restart the "To-drink or not-to-drink" debate again, but I can't help thinking it's a great gimmick for holding your lunchtime tipple without contaminating a camelbak, and avoids on-mountain litter too!

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