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Cheers mate! Make sure you get that cam out on the deep days, your vids keep me going through the long aussie summer months as I count down my days till I leave for japan. I subscribe to your youtube

No prob mate. Unfortunately I hypextended my ankle yesterday and its swollen up pretty bad today so I will be out of action for a few days I think. Here are some snapshots from yesterday riding with

Will do. Im doing the Chitose dash today. Cant wait to get home actually.

Long story there mate.

Damian told me oh btw my insurance policy wont cover non jp residents anymore but you are free to come at your own risk or buy your own insurance for heli evacuation etc.

I declined and now he hates me.

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I gopro bombed the f#@% out of a guy today. I Spent about a minute behind him making the most rediculous moves. He is going to piss himself when he sees the vid lol.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just caught up on this. Been deliberately avoiding all snow shenanigan discussion this season because i cant ****ing ride anywhere and this is obviously mecha annoying. Last thing you want to see is BEST SEASON EVER!!!! when youre laid up in some kind of financial/job limbo.

 

Of course im not so evil though i want everyone elses season to suck though. Sounds like this ones been a bit of a crappy one. Sorry to hear that, especially given that im prone to banging the nagano drum. :)

 

Im also prone to banging the nozzie drum. Im glad you finally got your head around it though and had a few good days on it. Its an odd place because on the face what you see is the following:

 

1. Insane crowding.

2. A shit flat middle section.

3. A fair bit of unclipping.

4. A top "powder" area thats more busy and more tracked and icy than any other part of the mountain.

5. Moguls on my beloved ushikubi.

6. Moguls everywhere else theres a steep.

7. The incredibly short window you can ride any of the steeps coming off skyline before they all die from the sun and are roped off by the patrol.

8. A lot of lift riding.

 

All of this points in one direction: Not for snowboarders.

 

But its definitely when you start scratching that surface you figure it all out. Glad you got to at least play in some of the areas. Dont know what you hit up. Im assuming of course tanuki, but knowing you its probably also including some rather more ridiculous lines you skinned across two mountains to reach.

 

Speaking of... wheres myoko in all this? I saw you hit akakan, but you didnt head up suginohara? I know i know... south facing, sticky sticky, but on a puke, sugi is awesome fun. Also its got (allegedly - what do i know?), one of the most fun lines you can hit up with a little hike above the top lift. And then theres also that trip report that did the big hike from a few years back taking you up into the huts and around to the mountain next to it (i forget and am on a very restrictive data plan at the moment so cant researchy). But it looked like something that was almost designed by the universe with you in mind :)

 

Madarao i dislike. You and snowjunky can keep it. The first time i went there was decent, but second time, holiday weekend in feb, was a ****ing nightmare. Buuuuuuuuuut! great trees to play in if the taps are on. Also superb open policy on riding. Very few ropes.

 

Glad you had a decent run out at kiji. Its good clean healthy excitement and the back line, as i said at the time, reminds me of tanuki (only with FAR less people). Theres other lines worth looking at there, but way out of my depth to try. Maybe you and iiyamadude can kiss make up and ride some of the more stupid lines (though if i recall, he aint getting out of bed for kiji).

 

Actually, now i think about it... whats your mountain iiyamadude? You never really said in all the time we've all yapped on.

 

oooh oooh! and did you hit shiga kogen at all? Again, id be surprised if you skipped it. Maybe just stopped updating or something. Or maybe its somewhere else on the forums. As i say, been deliberately staying out of the loop to preserve my sanity.

 

Anyways, just thinking out loud. Iiyama is an awesome little area. When the shink stop is ready to go (maybe it already is) it should definitely be on most peoples hit list as a base of operations for those on their um... third trip to japan (hakuba, niseko, iiyama). I just really feel that they need to tie this shit together a bit maybe with better public transport/connections and maybe some more interesting season/1 month/2 weeks passes.

 

Also yeah, you need to also have your shitty conditions board i reckon for a day of just buttering on the hill when the conditions are kinda crappy. It keeps up with niseko on numbers, but not on consistency (from my experience). You might be sitting a whole two weeks in early february with maybe only a few small top ups to keep it going. Board choice is definitely a little more complicated. Or less complicated if you do what i did and get so pissed off with getting the conditions wrong after your two hour train ride from tokyo that you think '**** it!' and just buy a board with a powder lean but pretty much an all-round bent on it. Hell, even the train ride from nagano to nozawa was amazing for blowing up your idea on the expected resort conditions. A different ride would have turned that frown upside down on the shittier days. Even nozawa piste is kinda fun if you crank out your twin on a stickier day and just play with ground tricks or lap the park. Hell, some of my most enjoyable days last season were late march when it was pretty much me and ten other people on the sticky ass resort just ****ing around on paradise of all places (the very shallow part next to the top of the hikage gondola where all the families are). So my message is, you need to build yourself a park board this year ;)

 

Oooh, and if theres one tip for nozawa to avoid insane queueing its this: make sure you come out at nagasaka rather than hikage if possible. The queue at nagasaka gondola always goes super quick.

 

Wonder if thats everything?

 

Sorry you had a shitty season for snow on your first trek to nagano. With snow the place is obviously insane fun. Hope its genuinely not the sign of things to come though. Last season also put the kibosh on the idea that january always delivers. It was only saved by february pulling out the stops. Maybe March will come to the rescue of this season like it did a few seasons back (2011 i think it was, unfortunately).

 

Anyways, hope you get to pop back and see it when its a bit more off the hook. Dunno, seems like youve got a few gaps just from reading the thread. Youre missing a hike up sugi, all of hakuba and shiga kogen, and even maybe sugadaira. You might find something fun there. I didnt. You might. And dont forget ryuoo. Not sure if you got to play it, but for me, stll my favorite (almost) on-piste line in japan (course b then up into the awesome trees and back down into the natural half pipe before being puked out into the main resort at mach 8).

 

Not to mention that kagura is still missing from your hit list as well as tanigawa. So plenty of reasons for another crack at it :)

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Theres plenty missing from my hit list I know but without snow it doesnt matter where you are, slush is slush and the same goes for ice. I ended up finding truely epic lines at noz and lots of them so it became a case of why bother when it was poor conditions and then when it did snow I didnt want to be anywhere else.

 

With snow everywhere in that area is awesome there is no doubt about that.I will definately be back, I have good friends who ride there so that alone will bring me back.

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Not missing anything here Goz shit Feb

I was drooling over your posts last year but 1M official in Feb pretty bad

Time to go home to my lovely wife and annoying kids and oh yeah work

Start planning for next year

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