[Australia snow season]

Australia is a big place and although the snow is only in one area I thought I would start by giving you some info on locations for the main ski hills.

 

Near Sydney - well if you call 6 hours drive close (I live in Sydney and we do weekends) also close to Canberra (1.5 hrs drive):

 

Thredbo - around a dozen lifts including fast quad chairs, highest lifted point in Australia 2037m and the most vertical 670m

www.thredbo.com.au

 

Perisher - biggest ski area in Australia, 50 lifts across four linked areas similar highest point to Thredbo but not as much vertical

www.perisherblue.com.au

 

 

Near Melbourne:

 

Mt Buller, approx 3 hours drive, 25 lifts great sking when the snow is good, busy on weekends, is kinda low so suffers in a bad season like we had last year

www.mtbuller.com.au

 

Falls Creek, approx 5 hours drive (9 hours from Sydney), 15 lifts highest lifted point 1780m, I learnt to ski here but haven't been back for a long time but plenty of fun terrain

www.fallscreek.com.au

 

Hotham, close to Falls Creek also approx 5 hours from Melbourne, 13 lifts, highest lifted point 1845m 395m of vertical and 40% advenced terrain and some of the steepest left accessed terrain in Australia

www.mthotham.com.au

 

My favourites are Thredbo and Mt Hotham

[bad snow in Japan still better than good snow in Aus]

Vid was taken in a few different places, mostly in the area under the Yamabko hooded quad chair also some in the "out of bounds" gully above Karasawa double chair accessed from the top of the Yamabko chairs.

Yep we got really lucky with the snow at Nozawa, we only had 3.5 days and we got 3 days of awesome powder and the last day the sun was out as well!

[bad snow in Japan still better than good snow in Aus]

Hey there,

We spent just under two weeks skiing in Japan 2 - 14 Feb - Shigakogen & Nozawa and even tho' the snow depth was less than anyone had seen before (some on the trip were on their 7th trip to japan in 7 years) - ie we hadn't seen bamboo sticking through the snow before! We still got a few cracker powder days.

There were 14 of us on the trip and many have skied the northern hemishpere most winters and have never had regular powder in North America or Europe as consistent as Japan.

 

Here's a link to some video we got at Nozawa http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5231239439958018707

 

About half the group have skied and enjoyed Niesko in the past but probably won't go back, the "Japan" and "powder" experiences has been destroyed with Aussie overcrowding but there is still plenty of areas in Japan to explore!

 

This season in Japan is still better than a good season in Australia!

[Eating out at Shigakogen]

Well we went and were well fed! Didn't find anything new but the Isakaya in Ichinose lived up to it's reputation (although our menu choices were a bit random this year with no Japanese speaker with us!), Nepalese Restaurant was awesome (went there twice), also little telemark bar (near Nepalese place) served good Japanese and Western food (weren't open for dinner last year) + had a couple of awesome meals at our lodge (Chalet Shiga, Santo San speaks good English, highly reccomended as an accom option for Shiga)! All coped with us arriving without booking - 10 to 14 Aussies with no Japanese language...

 

Despite the bad season, Japan didn't dissappoint with good snow at Shiga and awesome snow at Nozawa (our first time there) - trip was 2-14 Feb.

[Eating out at Shigakogen]

Nepalese resraunt sounds great will definately check that out.

 

Anyone know if there is more than one Isakaya? We know where one is (on the main road at Ichinose) but it would be great to discover another if there is one, anyone?

[UHF Radios. Worthwhile investment or gadget?]

We found them pretty useful at Niseko with a crew of about 12 and probably 8 radios between us, some had the 2W ones and the rest of us 0.5W there was some relaying of messages required. ie if some people were way down in Hanazono while others over in Alpen messages could be relayed if someone was in Kogen - but with a dozen of us out on the hill it usually worked. Was handy so the slow morning folk could catch up with the powder hunters without anyone having to wait around...

 

Have found the radios frustrating at Thredbo here in Aussie because there is no line of sight from one side of the hill to the other so we usually give up and use our mobile phones.

[UHF Radios. Worthwhile investment or gadget?]

We found them pretty useful at Niseko with a crew of about 12 and probably 8 radios between us, some had the 2W ones and the rest of us 0.5W there was some relaying of messages required. ie if some people were way down in Hanazono while others over in Alpen messages could be relayed if someone was in Kogen - but with a dozen of us out on the hill it usually worked. Was handy so the slow morning folk could catch up with the powder hunters without anyone having to wait around...

 

Have found the radios frustrating at Thredbo here in Aussie because there is no line of sight from one side of the hill to the other so we usually give up and use our mobile phones.

[Eating out at Shigakogen]

Thanks BagOfCrisps, SKI and SkyHigh sounds like we didn't miss anything last year it's just that there isn't much to find.

 

Hey SkyHigh do you remember the name of the hotel with the izakaya?

[UHF Radios. Worthwhile investment or gadget?]

According to a quick web search I just did the Aussie ones work on 476 to 477 MHz which looks like it isn't currently in use in Japan (although not legal either) while the ones from the USA are either 460 to 470 MHz or 26 to 27 MHz and it looks like the Japanese emergency services use 462 to 467. This is info gathered in a 5 min web search so don't quote me on it. However I do know from experience that the 40 channel handhelds bought in the USA don't work with the Aussie ones.

[Eating out at Shigakogen]

Hi, this is my first Snow Japan post but I've been checking out the site for over a year and will be heading to Japan for our 3rd ski trip in Feb. We're going to Shigakogen again, went last January, loved the skiing but had trouble finding places to go for dinner. Previous trip we had been to Niesko and could always walk to a wide variety of places to eat.

We're staying at Chalet Shiga again in Ichinose. Last year we ended up eating a couple of doors away at a really cool Izakaya most nights because we couldn't find anywhere else (and they had deep fried cheese, mmm...). Any one got any suggestions??