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On the change of weather this time of year. The hotel presented us with a special festival dinner last night to celebrate the end of winter. Edit. I don’t know why the hotel has us back in February 2020. I certainly don’t want to relive the couple of years after that time.

We are both not accomplished skiers. Kylie in particular doesn’t carve turns regardless of what skis she is on.* I can and do get my Rustler 10s (102mm) on edge in good conditions. They are so fun. I love the feeling of being propelled out of a wide turn. There is no doubt I couldn’t get them up...

We got lucky with conditions but statistically the last week of January is the best time for central Japan. From here it generally gets warmer and thaw/freeze comes into play between the snow events. Shiga Kogen may be the exception to a degree because of the higher base elevation. I’ll touch a...

There was a bit of snow forecast for last night but we woke to about 10 to 12 inches. It was a great day. We were skiing powder all day. We headed to the northern most area of the Shiga Kogen complex. The run above was only about 1000 feet of vertical and mellow pitch but we lapped that...

I have no idea what guts are. That’s why I took the pic.

At Ryuoo the punters were mostly on boards. Powderhounds explains that the snowboard culture there is strong because it was one of the first areas to allow boarding. https://www.powderhounds.com/Japan/Honshu/Ryuoo.aspx The other areas seem to be more like North America with more skiers than...

Oh. And we went to the Crumpet Cafe which was a bit novel. They serve coffee and crumpets as the only food option. We went for cream cheese and apple which was surprisingly good. We are still trying to work out what ‘guts’ is. See the sign below.

Another day another ramen lunch….. Nothing terribly exciting to report on the skiing front for today. There was only about half an inch of snow overnight. We skied with a couple of Australian fellows. They were groomer skiers so we only dabbled at the odd bit of off trail snow. It was nice to...

She hasn’t. As per my reply to Tony above.

She was given the option. She declined. She is careful with spending. I’ll buy her new skis before we go to Europe in a few weeks. I’ll make them wider so they will be more suited to Japan for next year.

The 92’s. She likes them.

We are down the southern end of the large Shiga Kogen complex today. The weather has cleared to make it easier for us area novices to navigate and find the fairly abundant sectors of lightly tracked powder. Today’s lunch is a value record. The ramen 1000 yen or about 6.50USD and the pork...

@jamesdeluxe I know you love ski resort signs. Japan’s answer to the Euro Insta signs below. And below is yesterday’s 8USD ramen. Today we are at a snowy Shiga Kogen. Kylie is enjoying the roughly 5 inches of snow on the groomers. It’s her idea of a perfect powder day.

The American west might be having a relatively lean season snow wise so far but there are still plenty of great beers to drink. I met a couple of Ikon wielding Americans from Colorado at Myoko who were enjoying lamenting the conditions back home. Of course they got lucky being here now. In a...

There are some lovely pitchy runs off the top with hero snow (or Alta snow as Kylie calls it). Perfectly north facing from what I can tell. Below. Some great natural halfpipes in the trees. And lastly a couple of shots from the lofty 4000 feet high summit.

I am sure there are plenty of these ‘pizza box’ single lifts but we have never ridden one. Novelty value.

Madarao today. Almost bluebird. Pretty scenery with the snow on the trees. ^^^ Trees with nice snow. Spaced for gapers like me.

I’ve never skied the east so I have zero perspective sorry.

Oh. And interestingly there were a lot of conifer type trees at the top of the ski area yesterday. Most of the trees I’ve seen in other ski areas have been deciduous types.

Most of it is renowned for being mellow pitch and from the limited amount I’ve seen from the two times I’ve been here that seems to be the case. As far as gradient is concerned like most of Snowmass or Grand Targhee or Northstar etc. The area under the tram at Ryuoo yesterday was a little...