grazza
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Posts posted by grazza
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Spent a lot of money and time at big name ski shop in Sydney getting the best quality, custom footbeds, the works. Had lots of adjustments last season at Niseko to make things bearable for her. Then day two this trip she has a half day lesson, skis hard and a little differently technique wise and her right big toe ends up looking like it's been hit with a hammer. Could bearly walk the next day, then had a few days R&R in Kyoto to let the major bruising subside a little.
Skiing here at Furano was bearable but painful, and we've just had the boots further adjusted here by a local guy (Mino Sports) who was a bit worrying but seems to have done a decent job. Tomorrow will tell, but her bruising on both big toes is still so sore that it will be hard for her to tell if it's really fixed.
The guy at hakuba told us that the boots she had been sold at great expense from the reputable Sydney shop (let's name the bastards - Larry Adler) were completely wrong for her and had nowhere near enough width in the toe for her foot shape. Who can you trust in this? Personally, I've never had a remotely good experience with ski boot fitters, one of the main reasons I switched to the blissful comfort of boarding. They all seem to promise the world and completely under deliver. They're still f@@king my holidays though. Shoot them all, I say.
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Mainly punching out the shell around the big toes to allow them room to breathe. She couldn't walk for two days, let alone ski. Very bruised and red. Still needs a little more, and now we're up in Furano bootfitters are a little harder to source.
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My wife had major and seemingly very effective boot surgery a few days back performed by a kiwi bloke (dont recall his name) at central sports next to the Adam Gondora at Happo. Highly recommended, made a huge difference.
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Really liked the Curry Ramen at Annupuri
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Do you need to leave from Sapporo or the airport?
To the Op:
The above is a very good question, because if you are staying at Rusustsu they should offer you a shuttle bus to come and pick you up from the airport. If I remember correctly it costs about the same as Donan Bus.
Having said that though Donan is also good and pretty easy to find from the train station.
Last question.....Can your computer read Japanese characters? If not then I guess one of us can write out the times for you.
Thanks. Have to come from Furano, so Chitose is not an option, unless it's 6 hours in buses, which would drive me potty. Black Mountain, thanks for the translation, much appreciated.
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I'm kinda stuck with this one. Using babelfish I suspect that I have found the Donan Bus timetable for buses from Sapporo to Rusutsu, but I'm not really sure, and even if I was, I can't work out where they leave from.
This is the webpage (I think)
http://donanbus.co.j...utsu/index.html
Am I on the right track? What does this actually say? Are there other buses from Sapporo to Rusutsu? Where does this one leave from?
Heeeeelp pleeeeese.
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Thanks all - it sounds like the full long haul for us....
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Usually I can work these things out for myself, but a little help would be appreciated. Is there a way of doing this transfer that doesn't take 6 hours and multiple changes? If not, is overnighting in Sapporo a better option?
Thanx
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Kamimura is extraordinary. A very, very good restaurant (with prices to match).
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Wow....both hotels full already
.....is it really that good? or a hot tourist spot? 
They had some availability, just not the stretches that I wanted. I sort of got the impression that for some reason they didn't want to do the booking?! I mean, they couldn't be full already in a year when skiers numbers have to be down on usual, could they?
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Out of interest, what was the Japanese ski industry like before the bubble? How many of the current resorts were in existence?
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All that is true, and much more. It's not as if the Japanese haven't got a history of innovation and excellence. Think Sony, Toyota, etc, etc. They showed the world how to do it for so long, until they got caught up in the asset bubble. I'd love to see some of the Japanese approach to quality and strategy that was so successful in the 70's and 80's applied to the snow. That could produce some great things.
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None of this changes the amazing beauty of the place, though. Even with driving ranges in the foreground, wow... That's one of the reasons I keep coming back every year.
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Sure, then the government steps in and bails out the banks, just like in the U.S. (at least the banks the govt likes) or Europe.
They've done that already, that's why Japanese public debt is now a world leading 225% of GDP and steadily rising. To put this in perspective Greece's ratio is 130%, and we know how much trouble they are in.
Currently, over 60% of Japan tax receipts are used to pay off interest on debt. If you keep on spending more than you earn, eventually the money runs out, you can't cover your commitments and you have a sovereign debt crisis, as we have now in Greece. I'd suggest that propping up unprofitable skijos would be an obvious spending cut target in that scenario.
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I tried to book a week at Kiroro for this coming January, and got the very strange reply from the resort that January was pretty much booked out. I'm talking mid to late January, not new years. I couldn't believe that it was true, but there you go.
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Yeah, but tax write-off or not, sooner or later the money has to run out.
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So a few casualties, but no one of real significance?
if they don't make money and they don't close down, there must be money coming in to make up the shortfall. Government money? Parent company money from other profitable enterprises? Banks refusing to let bad investments become completely worthless? Seems like a magic pudding approach, and magic puddings, as Europe is currently discovering, aren't really magic at all - they just seem that way for a while.
BTW, here is the link to the radio program that started me thinking on this, if you're interested.
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So I guess there's no one out there who really knows the answer to my question about whether these resorts are profitable or not, and if not, how it is that they don't close down.
I am assuming that we don't see an urgent push towards commercial re-invention because the resorts don't feel a need for urgency, and that if things really were dire (i.e. double visitor numbers or close down next season) then they would probably have a go at something innovative. As Samuel Johnson famously said, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully".
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Don't know for a fact, but that was what it looks like. At Tomamu for example my estimate of the total midweek crowd on the mountain would be a few hundred. Maybe triple that through the Coming of Age day long weekend. We stayed in a massive suite with sauna and jacuzzi, all food, all lift tickets for 2 people for around $300 a day. Total resort income perhaps $40K per day? Staff everywhere. Huge all you can eat buffets with choice produce.
It was an awesome deal, but, back of the envelope, that seems like a major loss to me. I guess I might be wrong, but I'd be surprised. I kinda felt embarassed about it, like I wasn't paying my way. My only thought was maybe this place is packed through summer??
Does anyone know if these places, particularly the bigger resorts like Rustsu or Appi or Naeba, make money?
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GN, DiGriz, clearly you're right about the paralysis of snow resort management in Japan, and the fact that the only real movement seems to have been in the areas where foreign investment has driven change. I guess one of the questions that's bugging me is the sheer economy impossibility of the big empty bubble resorts. Where the hell does the cash come from? It sure doesn't walk through the front door in skier wallets. Are there parent companies absorbing these losses year after year? Are there government subsidies? How is it even possible?
There comes a point as things get tough in business when the emotional dial of the leaders shifts from denial and complacency to deep fear and recognition of the need for radical surgery. How is this not happening now?
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I was listening to a very interesting radio program this morning on the history of the 20+ year old Japanese economic malaise. Not news I know, but it was interesting to hear the story laid out like that - the asset defaltion, the bad assets on banking balance sheets, the steady feed of public money in to prop up failing banks, to where they are today with massive levels of public debt, an economy that refuses to kickstart, investment appetite minimal, un and underemployment etc, etc. And on top of this, the massive reconstruction costs from the tsunami.
In this context, I am intrigued by what I've seen on my annual snow trip for the past five years, namely, empty slopes, ski towns time-warped in the 70's and 80's, infrastructure built in the bubble era that while perfectly serviceable is dated, ratty around the edges and and even falling down in places.
Personally, I don't find this a problem. What's not to like about empty resorts where you never have to wait for a lift and the powder lasts all day? But I'm intrigued ... where does the money come from to keep resorts afloat that are clearly not economically viable? I know that there have been a few resorts fall as casualties over the years, but remarkably few considering.
And how come so few resorts actually seem worried enough by this to really do something about it , like aggressively market themselves to OS markets? Why haven't there been more consolidation of disconnected resorts to make cool mega resorts, as has happened in Europe and North America?
Case in point - we visited Tomamu last year. Insanely good - powder every day, crazy luxurious (if dated) suite in the Tower for stupidly low all inclusive price and best of all no one there. We literally spent days lapping powder runs down courses with no other riders at all in sight. One of the two Galleria Suite Towers (30 odd floors with a few hundred rooms) was closed with lights out. More staff than riders midweek, and not many more on the weekend. So the business side of me is saying - just how much money would this resort be losing everyday? $50k? $100k? I don't know exactly but it wouldn't be small.
I get the feeling that there are lots of Tomamus out there. To some degree, most of them seem to in trouble, and appear have a deer in the headlights attitude. Niseko, much as it's not my favourire place in Japan by a long chalk, seems to be an exception. Consolidated resorts, vibrant (if not to my taste) town, new investment, well marketed - it would appear to tick most boxes and probably is getting the visitor numbers to be a decent business. Hakuba has some of this happening too. Shiga has at least done the consolidation thing to build a more attractive resort. From the 10 or so other places I've ridden in Japan, I'd be surprised if any was profitable.
So how is it done? Am I wrong? Do these resorts make so much from the summer golf trade that winter is irrelevant? Why doesn't anyone seem concerned? Is there a pipeline of cash that keeps things afloat, and how much longer can such a pipeline hold out in a debt-saturated economy? And are we going to hit a point when the money disappears and Japanese resorts shut down in large numbers. Will visitor numbers be funnelled into the survivors to create viable resorts that can then invest in their future rather than struggle to stop their past rusting away? Is our empty snow paradise sustainable, or is it a fleeting accident of history?
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Originally Posted By: Jynxx
Nay, All I am saying is just be prepared.
... Man, If you think this is pessimistic, you won´t cut it as a skydiver. I have been at dropzones and we(skidivers) see people hit the ground dead in front of us. We keep going the next day. Getting killed or hurt doing what we wanna do.
There are a lot of people who don´t think ahead. Later complain that no one has told them or warned them....
Hell man, you're extreme!
I guess skydiving isn't a professional option for me, then. People falling from the sky and splatting in front of me would kinda freak me for a least two or three days, I'd think... -
Sheeet.
This thread got super pessismistic all of a sudden.
It seems only yesterday that you were all giving me visions of slicing giant carves down pristine white powder fields on my new stick, and now I'm sitting in ER with bones sticking from my forearm trying to convince an officious Japanese nurse who doesn't understand my screams of pain and my urgent need for morphine. Lighten up, please...
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Very interesting. I'm just about to set up my new (and first) freeride board for launching in 4 days time, so this is timely.
A question. When you measure the stance width, what points on the board do you measure from and to (if that makes sense)?
Aghhhh my feet are killing me..... Customizing Boots.....
in Snow talk, trip reports, Japan avalanche & backcountry
Posted
Haven't been back to complain... yet. Even on your sixth pair of boots, you're still in a position of having to trust someone's professional opinion, without really having much idea of their professionalism. If you had 50 boots worth of experience, maybe you'd know enough to be your own bootfitter.
One problem I see is the limited range of brands that Aus shops carry. If they only have two or three brands, there's not much variety in fit options. And with the fitting fee that most want to charge you, there's a real push to get you in a pair of boots no matter what.
Here's what I'd like - independent bootfitters who assessed your feet, told you which were the best boots to buy, and fitted them for you when you bought them.
Mamabear, I am finding the world of snowboard boots a lot easier. But the issue with the limited range and fitting fee is bigger here. Shop think that you don't buy their boots after trying on because you're going to do it online. In reality, I like to try on as many boots as I can, research them on the web (shop assistants often don't know their range very well) and then buy. Most shops think I'm ripping them off when I walk out without buying after 30 minutes trying on boots, but hell they're my feet and want them right.
Jynxx, don't think that was Adlers. They're pretty exclusively ski.