Japan 2011- info

hey bugs, just hit ryuoo, one of the BEST on piste runs ive ever done. :) The place is phenomenally good. Believe me when i say this, theres going to be a GUSHING review of this place sometime soon. If youre reading this, can ride a bit of tricky terrain, and are in the general area (nagano) GO THERE NOW. Its honestly one of the best days ive had this season :)

damn, im there right now :) Well, not RIGHT right now. The bus from yudanaka is certainly doable i can report. I can also report that you may as well stay away from the yoketayama side. Im sure youll do what i did though and still go just to see. But make sure you time yoru buses right. Sitting about in suzurikawa for 30 minutes waiting for a bus isnt really all that fun. And that was just to get me to the rope way. If i wanted to get to ichinose area it would have been an hour wait. Lucky i just wanted lunch.

If youre pressed for time just chill about yakebi and terakoya. Spent all my afternoon on terakoya riding the olympic course a couple of times (whiteout makes the olympic course very dodgy), and the giant course. Ill post way more of a proper info abou the place later, but heres some fun powder stashes ive found:

1. yakebi: (advanced) under gondola 2 (prince hotel gondola). Aside a few places where youll have to climb, you can ride it pretty much all the way to the bottom. Lots of little powder stashes along the way.
2. Yakebi: (intermediate) next to the olympic course (skiers left) is a roped off area with a nice little powder ride bringing you under gondola 1. When you get under it though it gets pretty tracked and choppy.
3. yakebi: (expert) this ones hard to describe. Theres a green run at the top of the prince gondola, ride that a bit until you get to circle red 8 (itll make sense when you get here). Drop into the trees here and you have a really long ridge line that brings you out at red triangle 3. Dont stray too far down like i did :)
4. terakoya (beginner): This is the best quality powder in the whole area to my mind. Pop off the top lift, head skiers right into the trees and you have perma shaded light fluffy beautiful pow to play with. Its niseko quality and aside a few spots in yoketeyama, theres no better snow in the whole resort.
In fact, terakoya is really a small little pow area. The other sides are slow and sticky, but theres some fun runs around here, so make sure you make the effort to get up there. It also has an outstanding view from the top.
5. Ichinose to tannenomori: (beginner) basically just find a line that cuts through the trees, there you will come out on a nice open line of pow that looks like a lift run, but theres no lift. Then when youre done, start edging under the pair lift on the way to tannenomori.
Tannenomori is also a nice little area. Theres not much here, but its really chilled and groovy. I wouldnt hang about, but its just one of those pleasant places for a cute and peaceful ride.
6. Giant: (beginner): The powder stash happens half way down on skiers left under the lifts. Once you pass the middle get off part of the baby yellow lift (youll see it), head skiers left, duck the rope, and you have a massive pow stash. I spent all afternoon playing on it today and couldnt honestly stop. :) You can also do the run under the lift from the very top (intermediate), but its a bit trickier given that you have a couple of small drops and also have to avoid accidentally ending up on the wrong side of the road. Yes, theres a road.
7. Shibutoge area: (beginner) Lots of little tree runs. Also, from what i could see it was quite beautiful with zao like snow monsters. Alas the whiteout meant i didnt spend as much time here as i would have liked. I could baely see two or three feet in front of my face.
8. Yokote: (intermediate) all the best runs are skier only. But who needs them anyway. Pop out under the middle lift and youll have the only other place where the powder was seriously light and soft (in parts) to glide on it. If youre up for some mischief its definitely a fun (if albeit a little brief) line to play on.

So thats what i discovered in days 1 and 2, ive still 1 more morning, but ill probably just stick to yakebi and see what else is around there. For my money its got the most interesting lines, and if you were really good, theres some serious looking lines coming off the backside of okushigakogen (skier only area as well).

Theres lots of different places as well you can practice your tree riding. The more advances stuff is around yakebi, but up the top of the other two mountains its pretty mellow and fun. Also dont forget the olympic course and a somewhat under appreciated nishidetayama. It has some surprisingly fast lines (once you get past the mogul field).

Thanks for the info. I'm probably just going to stick to yakebi for 2 days. Luckily I'll be driving so no buses for me.

Haha, for real? That would be awesome. I'll shoot you a pm later today.

i just got back from japan yesterday.  it was a great trip and the snow, when you get it, is great.  however, compared to the rockies, the mountains are pretty small.  runs were pretty short and most runs were upper intermediate.  There weren't many challenging runs.   I was at Niseko and Myoko.  

Originally posted by ezylee Anyway, here is a bit of a video I made up of my Japan trip. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9iswvO5A-E

It's not mine, It's ezylee's. I just embedded it for him. 

Japan 2011 according to ipps:

Trip 1: hokkaido

1. Niseko: Good fun. Fun is pretty much the operative word here. Lots of light soft fluffy pow to play in, some fun lines to ride, and some fun little kickers to hit. A kind of snow adventure park.
2. Moiwa: Small, intimate, empty, pow with plenty of fresh lines and even the capacity to hook back up with niseko. Also has a line i felt very uncomfortable riding out the skiers right side.
3. Furano: No snow. Fast but ultimately uninteresting. I could have enjoyed it for maybe a couple of days, but 9 days here with no pow put a total downer on my january trip
4. kamui: More hokkaido snow theme park shenanigans. Only not quite as full of bogans and not so tracked out. Fresh lines are ever flowing. Until it gets icy then it blows apparently.

Trip 2: nagano.

5. Myoko akakan: Surprisingly good fun this time. Only one day there, but the trees and lift runs were great fun. Powder was stickier than i remember though and it took a nice dumping throughout the day to bring it back to life.
6. Myoko suginohara: I know i had a good day there, but im buggered if i can remember much of it. I do remember the snow feeling heavy in lots of places, but i also remember the lift runs being wild.
7. Myoko akakura onsen: i hated this place. Aside a couple of spots it really was the worst day i spent/wasted on my second trip.
8. Ryuoo: Possibly the best day i had this year. Spent two days here, the first was unbelievably good possibly because i didnt know what to expect, the second felt a bit more humdrum as i was probably getting a litle bored with the same run. (for it is really only one run).
9. Shiga kogen: So much variety, but then again so much youd probably end up skipping after youve run it once or twice (and quite a lot around sun valley youll never bother with even the one time). On day 1 i was thinking "if i live in nagano again im probably buying a season ticket here". and by day 2 i was thinking "actually, this probably has less stuff id want to hit than at myoko or hakuba, ill probably just buy the myoko, nozawa, hakuba, shiga ticket instead (oh were there such a thing!)". Yakebitaiyama is probably the only place with serious lines worth riding without resorting to a spot of hiking. But if hiking is your thing then there seems to be more than enough places in the general vicinity youd want to think about hitting. I mean, youre surrounded by the japanese alps here.

There, my season in under 1000 words :)

Originally posted by woodyy05 sweet vid ezylee.. i wish i was still there. definitely suffering from post travel depression now haha

Originally posted by matic Originally posted by mech9t5 Originally posted by woodyy05 sweet vid ezylee.. i wish i was still there. definitely suffering from post travel depression now haha i like the vid of shibuya crossing.  when I was there last week, I was there around 4:30pm and it didn't seem like there were that many people... kind of a let down.  It was cool crossing there though. go after 5-6PM. as cliche as the "sight" might be...it's still pretty amazin.

Originally posted by matic Originally posted by mech9t5 Originally posted by matic Originally posted by mech9t5 Originally posted by woodyy05 sweet vid ezylee.. i wish i was still there. definitely suffering from post travel depression now haha i like the vid of shibuya crossing.  when I was there last week, I was there around 4:30pm and it didn't seem like there were that many people... kind of a let down.  It was cool crossing there though. go after 5-6PM. as cliche as the "sight" might be...it's still pretty amazin. i left shibuya around 5pm.  They say 6-7am and 6-7pm is the busiest.  But I wasn't going to wait around for an hour just for that. shouldve peeped the area. plenty to do/see

i think i got there about 6.30 and it was insane! so glad i went then, a couple of our other mates went about 7 in the morning after going to the fish markets and they said it was a bit of a let down.. guess we timed it pretty much spot on!

Originally posted by mech9t5 i've never used a lock at all the places I've been to (haven't been to japan yet... leaving tomorrow!!!).  Maybe I've been lucky. Besides my local place (which is crappy), I've been to mammoth, vail, aspen, whistler, and a couple resorts in chile.  Although vail/aspen had valet everywhere... and you'd think chile would be bad since snowboard gear is expensive there.  But, I didn't see any locks at all.  Skiers didn't even rack their skis... just left it on the ground (which was annoying). where are you that you worry about board theft?

Oh no, I was just wondering since theft has increased by a lot according to all those stolen board posts on the forum here.  I've been to Japan so I know it's pretty safe there but I've never gone boarding there so I was wondering if gaijins are up to no good but I guess it's just an issue in the US.

Originally posted by matic shouldve peeped the area. plenty to do/see

Originally posted by Angry Midget Yo  Oh no, I was just wondering since theft has increased by a lot according to all those stolen board posts on the forum here.  I've been to Japan so I know it's pretty safe there but I've never gone boarding there so I was wondering if gaijins are up to no good but I guess it's just an issue in the US.

Just made up another video from leftover footage from my Japan trip.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46nf_oGSpvI

Originally posted by woodyy05 speaking of board thefts, really theres barely any gajins in hakuba.. might not be the same in niseko, but all the westerners (pretty much all australians) i met on the slopes all left there boards unlocked and nobody said anything about stolen gear. i think i saw about 2 locks in my whole 6 days of boarding. you'd have to be super unlucky/have alot of bad karma to get stuff stolen on the slopes in japan from what im saw/heard.

Originally posted by humdingaling actually i saw quiet a few locks while i was at hirafu none what so ever at Mowai saw the most awesome lock while i was there i couldnt find it at any stores but X_X one thing i did see lots of was video cameras so many go pros and contours

The impression I got when I was in Hakuba, was the old phrase "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" (or whatever it is)

No one was being disrespectful of other people's property.

shtook! hope anyone that's over in japan is alright! did you guys feel anything at the mountains? heart goes out to them

Can be avalanches created by the earthquakes?

Originally posted by Nachitox Can be avalanches created by the earthquakes? That'd be terrifying

thats sad to hear. Any info on it?
ETA: I just checked hakuba now on snowjapan and they dont even mention it. :?

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think except the affected area, and the radiation issues, the rest of Japan is working like nothing happened. 

^^^uhhh I'm pretty sure the whole country in still in emergency crisis mode because of the amount of destruction. No, the rest of Japan is not functioning like nothing happened...why would you assume that?

I think he means its not going quite as mental as western media reports would indicate (radiation clouds coming to destroy tokyo; mass evacuations; no food; no electricity; dogs and cats living together...) And from what i gather its generally correct. Theres a great deal of story manufacture going on from people who probably should know better. Even the BBC, that legendary source of information has been driving me insane with its hypotheticals, qualifiers, and exaggerations.