Thundercat 60 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Well, not exactly... but we surprised ourselves by finding a really good little area that was steep, deep and full of nicely spaced trees. I was lucky enough to have won a ticket from SnowJapan and it was a wonderful day to be on the mountain with about 20~30 cms of fresh snow and temps staying low all day which meant the snow condition was top quality till the last run. The slopes were pretty empty first thing in the morning Everything was covered in snow Started to get a little cloudier later in the afternoon Low cloud cover G getting in deep And disappearing Snowball! Zero viz! I was finally able to get out from behind the camera for a sweet line! Here is the sequence. (Thanks G!) So I have to say that boarding a Madarao was a mixed bag of frustration and sweet riding. If you aren't a total beginner I don't see too much point in going to this place. The lifts got going painfully slow in the morning... possibly because of the snow... but what was really happening was they were letting the staff up on the lifts to get the on piste freshies. I sat and watched three ski patrol go up and down the lifts 4 or 5 times before they let their customers get in on the action. Now some might argue that they were checking the course but more than once they just came flying down the center of the piste next to their own lines. We were stuck midway down the hill watching all this beautiful snow getting eaten up... I was spewing! The lifts are also slow and all seem to go to the same place... it's a small hill and yet you find yourself having to take two, three or four lifts to get up to the top. There is one course that is worth while for more advanced riders... which they had closed in preparation for some kind of competition the following day. This area didn't even have any lift access so after cruising down you need to traverse the whole bottom of the mountain to get back to the lifts. If it hadn't snowed the night before I would have totally hated this place. Thankfully fresh snow was in abundance! Great for families though as there are tons of distractions like tubing and snowmobiling. Actually... if you were there midweek after a snow storm I think you'd find loads of fun stuff (once they finally get the lifts running ) Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 nice. Love those blue skies and the deeps. Where again? Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Yeah--hiii nice BM. Good to hear you got za pow. Madarao Kogen between Nozawa and Myoko, thursday. Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Great report with cool pics. What a difference fresh snow makes. Very lucky and good for you! Now, this business with snow patrol is total BS. Link to post Share on other sites
snowdude 44 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Great pics! I too will be exploring Madarao Kogen soon as I too was lucky enough to get a free ticket from SJ, will report back my experience too! Link to post Share on other sites
Thundercat 60 Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 Forgot to add this beauty! Link to post Share on other sites
SKI 15 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Many children there? Link to post Share on other sites
Thundercat 60 Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 Actually, not so many. I'm sure it gets pretty crowded with ski schools though. Even my students from Shizuoka go there once a year. Link to post Share on other sites
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