So what skis is she using?
Japan 2026
- Thread starter Sbooker
- Start date
The 92’s. She likes them.
She's lucky the storms eased off. But even in that last pic she would not be working as hard on fatter skis.
When has she skied on 100+ width skis in deep powder?
Probably never. It is possible rentals are more difficult to find at the mom-and-pop areas they are skiing vs. Niseko or Hakuba.
But they aren't being guided. I recall the guy from Ohio who didn't think he needed fat skis for Harris Mt. Heli in New Zealand. After a couple of runs with him floundering, the guide parked him on a glacier while the rest of us took 4 more runs.
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.
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She hasn’t. As per my reply to Tony above.
Wasn't suggesting buying skis. Makes more sense to rent wide skis when there is deep powder first to see if it makes enough difference.
Here's my story when it comes to powder skis. When I started doing one trip out west per season fifteen years ago, I wasn't interested in lugging two pairs of skis when flying to the Rockies. However, I demo'd either by renting wide skis on the rare powder day or checking out skis at a free demo day to learn what I liked and what wasn't of interest. I liked a pair of DPS skis that are 106 underfoot because I could easily turn them on groomers. The 110-112 skis I tried when I demo'd were only fun in deep soft snow. Only reason I bought the wide skis is because they were offered for sale by a Ski Diva at a great price. Those skis don't travel with me. They stay with my ski buddy in Albuquerque. He drives when we do ski trips together and has two ski boxes on his big SUV that is driven for ski trips. I have only used my powder skis about a dozen times since buying them five years ago. I don't do powder chasing trips, so it's a matter of being lucky every so often.
Penny wise and pound foolish. Since Kylie primarily skis groomers the 92 is probably an appropriate daily driver. So it makes sense to rent on the occasional powder day, which in places other than Japan is rarely as much as 15%. It is the occasional or inexperienced powder skier who needs the fat skis the most. MarzNC is trying to convey that message more diplomatically than I do.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 ski fast and do big turns on edge most of the day for a change.
We’re staying in the main village of the Shiga Kogen complex. The village is called Ichinose. It’s fairly central to the large (for Japan standards) ski area.
The hotel we are staying at called Hotel Sanraku includes breakfast and dinner. The dinners are an extravagant affair.
The menu in Japanese below.
The translation which I feel is not entirely correct is below.
The breakfast is not dissimilar and is certainly NOT western. Most of the clientele are Japanese. We and another couple are the only westerners.
Breakfast included these extremely ugly and angry looking fish.
On the positive side some of it was decent and the coffee was hot. We prefer western breakfasts….
Today’s lunch was miso ramen. A rip off compared to yesterday at 8USD.
A couple of random shots from today below. We didn’t take many pics.
No snow due overnight unfortunately.
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 ski fast and do big turns on edge most of the day for a change.
We’re staying in the main village of the Shiga Kogen complex. The village is called Ichinose. It’s fairly central to the large (for Japan standards) ski area.
The hotel we are staying at called Hotel Sanraku includes breakfast and dinner. The dinners are an extravagant affair.
The menu in Japanese below.
The translation which I feel is not entirely correct is below.
The breakfast is not dissimilar and is certainly NOT western. Most of the clientele are Japanese. We and another couple are the only westerners.
Breakfast included these extremely ugly and angry looking fish.
On the positive side some of it was decent and the coffee was hot. We prefer western breakfasts….
Today’s lunch was miso ramen. A rip off compared to yesterday at 8USD.
A couple of random shots from today below. We didn’t take many pics.
No snow due overnight unfortunately.
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jasoncapecod
Well-known member
that looks great..that food is right up my ally... skiing looks nice and chill ...go vibes
ahh..what are GUTS?
ahh..what are GUTS?
EMSC
Well-known member
I'm curious based on that pic what % of snowboard vs skiers you are finding in Japan.
(looking at Ryuoo trail map) I forget; Why exactly do so many Japanese ski areas list all trees as off limits/forbidden?
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.
Ryuoo
Ryuoo Ski Park aka Ryuo is a ski resort in Nagano Japan near Shiga Kogen and Nozawa Onsen. Kitashiga Ryuoo is mainly frequented by Japanese only.
www.powderhounds.com
As far as the trees go I don’t know why there are ‘forbidden’ zones but it seems there are a lot of terrain traps.
I have no idea what guts are. That’s why I took the pic.
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 with two other people for about 2 hours early this morning.
^^ Above is an Aussie guy we were skiing with.
There are nice fun pockets of trees everywhere.
It cleared about 2.30pm.
We are heading home tomorrow. Today was a nice ski day to finish on.
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 with two other people for about 2 hours early this morning.
^^ Above is an Aussie guy we were skiing with.
There are nice fun pockets of trees everywhere.
It cleared about 2.30pm.
We are heading home tomorrow. Today was a nice ski day to finish on.
jasoncapecod
Well-known member
amazing....you hit it out of the park
Tony and I had the "daily driver" discussion while at Serre Chevalier during a snow drought. I told him that his mid-90s didn't make sense for me when you're skiing mostly onpiste hardpack or offpiste with a bit of loose snow. People always swear that their mid-90s "are easy to get on edge" but IMO they look like a recipe for skidding most turns. I know that I'm not good enough to get my 98s on edge without a few inches of fresh snow.
Yesterday at Loveland -- my 82s next to someone's 115s. Why anyone would choose to use those right now in Colorado makes zero sense to me but hey, enjoy and get it on (ZZ Top reference):
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 bit more on the timing a bit later when I can get Kylie to send me a particular pic that she took.