Results 426 to 450 of 601
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01-04-2020, 02:07 AM #426Registered User
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
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- 1,435
Headed over Tuesday until the 24th. Hoping for good things. Cant be worse then at home. We have nothing and nothing forecasted.
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01-04-2020, 04:36 AM #427
I was skiing the trees at Kokusai two weeks ago. It was thin then but I felt like with a couple more good snowfalls the sasa and other bushes would be mostly covered and things would start opening up. A friend went there yesterday and said we still need snow. I've been seeing videos of people skiing Kiroro backcountry and Niseko backcountry and some of it looks pretty fucking good. The depth seems like it's not that great... 140 cm at Kokusai and 170 at Kiroro. More than a lot of Colorado has right now and they are supposedly doing very well while we are complaining about low snow.
My frustration since moving back here last year is with the lack of decent forecasting. We know it's going to snow somewhere sometimes but where and how much seems beyond the pale. I use Windydotcom and while it references both the ECMWF and GFS models and their respective forecasts vary quite a bit, both are pretty poor at forecasting snowfall here. If there is a trend they dramatically underforecast what falls but also at times they say some snow and nothing falls. What I get from it is visibility into the expected wind direction, and as we know, the northwest wind is usually the main factor we can look to to know when it's going to snow. But it seems to me that we get very little northwest wind over the last two seasons and most of our snow comes on a west wind, which carries less moisture and is warmer. It's not like Colorado, where we can see a storm coming for several days. Here it's not storm systems as much as it is sustained winds from the northwest that pick up moisture over the Japan Sea and dump it when it reaches the land. And all the forecasts I have looked at plainly suck at predicting snowfall amounts.
I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this contribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.
--MT--
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01-04-2020, 08:20 AM #428Registered User
- Join Date
- May 2010
- Location
- Innsbruck, Austria
- Posts
- 561
I know it's not Hokkaido, but as this seems to be the general japow thread this season... Any have an idea how northern Honshu (Akita/Tohoku area) is looking these days?
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01-04-2020, 09:51 AM #429
Seems geto kogen got some decent snow over the last 3 days and is forecasted for more. Base appears to be shaping up well.
Will be there end Jan/early feb with Japan Ski Tours.
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01-04-2020, 10:13 AM #430Registered User
- Join Date
- May 2010
- Location
- Innsbruck, Austria
- Posts
- 561
^^ Thanks! Had an epic few days in Tazawako a few years back. Planning another Japan trip for mid Feb or so and trying to decide where...
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01-06-2020, 12:28 AM #431
Despite little to no snow forecast, it snowed about 20cm in Niseko yesterday and more today. Unfortunately, high winds also came in and really hammered NW slopes. We skied some sheltered slopes in the trees on lee aspects which was pretty good although the wind was even starting to reach down there.
The skiing has been good overall for the last four days and a bunch of snow has stacked up. However, with much brush and bamboo still uncovered and no significant snow forecast for the next week, it’s not the best outlook.
Has anyone skied in the Furano/Daisetsuzan area in the last couple of days? How has it faired after this storm and how is the coverage?
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01-06-2020, 06:39 AM #432
I have been down with a bad neck and not been out for a week. But there was dust today on satellite imagery in a plume coming out of Daisetsu clouds heading SE toward the Pacific. I don't know if any fell on the mountains but it was blowing on the ground around Obihiro. Did you see any in Niseko area?
I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this contribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.
--MT--
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01-06-2020, 07:01 AM #433
Dust as in dirt or ash? No we didn’t see any in Niseko. Is that likely some volcanic activity from the mountains there?
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01-07-2020, 02:00 AM #434
Low tide conditions at Niseko United continue. Slightly disheartening to see big, shiny mogul fields on the runs here.
Rusutsu was skiing great last week, but I haven’t been in 5 days, so can’t comment.
In other news, the Niseko backcountry is skiing better, but temps have been hovering around freezing or just below, so the daily warmups and infrequent sunny periods have been creating lots of melt/freeze crusts.
The wind has also been against us, creating huge scoured zones on the north aspects I’m interested in skiing in warm conditions like this.
Pics are from a few tours in the area, and are really gorgeous despite the low snow.
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01-07-2020, 02:39 AM #435
I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this contribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.
--MT--
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01-08-2020, 12:12 AM #436Mike Pow
- Join Date
- Apr 2005
- Location
- Between a rock and a soft place. Aberdare and The Brecon Beacons, Wales
- Posts
- 3,208
Started my winter on 01 January
01 January @ Kiroro - knee deep
02 January @ Kiroro - over the head. as good as it gets snow-wise, but not a lot of terrain
https://www.instagram.com/p/B66dxHzFBcT/
03 January @ Kiroro - boot top powder, wind had compacted it
04 January @ Niseko Moiwa - boot top powder under bluebird skies
https://www.instagram.com/p/B69DiX3FkK3/
05 January @ Rusutsu - boot top powder under bluebird skies
06 January @ Rusutsu - boot top powder under bluebird skies
07 January @ Rusutsu - knee deep powder under bluebird skies
08 January @ Rusutsu - soft crud, cloudy, snowed about 5cm this afternooon. Snowing when we left
Rusutsu has the most terrain and best conditions in Shiribeshi at the moment IMHO
Snowing lightly in Niseko at 4.10 pm
I use snow-forecast.com
Normally spot on with freezing level, wind direction & wind speed
Consistently under-forecasts snowfall amounts.
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01-08-2020, 07:31 AM #437
For me, the biggest surprise with skiing in Japan, as others have mentioned above, was just how unreliable / inaccurate the weather forecasts are. I'd heard the rumors but figured they were somewhat exaggerated. They were not. Our deepest day there was at Sapporo Teine and it was maybe 2 - 3 feet of snow overnight... which was just a bit more than the 1-3 inches in the forecast. Other days we thought we were going to get skunked and then it would just snow several inches seemingly out of nowhere. Pretty crazy.
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01-08-2020, 09:11 PM #438deciblast
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Location
- San Francisco
- Posts
- 212
I'm heading to Hakuba on the 15th to the 23rd. I'm splitboarding with Good Guides on the 19th. The forecast says 18" in the next 10 days, while Tahoe now says 47" in the next 10 days. Hopefully some magic happens and it dumps.
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01-08-2020, 09:19 PM #439
Hokkaido Japan; Central Hokkaido or Niseko
Feel like Tahoe may be lacking in Japanese cuisine and a cultural experience but I could be wrong here.
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01-08-2020, 10:42 PM #440
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01-10-2020, 02:25 PM #441
Any estimates on an all in cost for skiing jpow for a week? Coming from East coast
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01-10-2020, 02:59 PM #442
Lift tickets are in the $40-50 range with cheaper options if you buy points tickets use them to access sidecountry.
Lodging is a huge range but you can find hostels for less than $50 a night.
You can eat at convenience stores pretty cheap if you want or you can spend as much as hundreds on good Japanese food.
ground transportation by bus is easy because your gear goes underneath. Figure around $100 to get from Chitose to anyplace in Hokkaido.
It's possible to dirtbag it pretty cheap but you end up totally missing the cultural experience, I'll leave the air tickets to your own devices.
I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this contribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.
--MT--
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01-10-2020, 03:00 PM #443
Thanks. Sounds like the major expense is the flight. Got a few bucks to throw around once I'm there to enjoy my time. Going to investigate...
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01-10-2020, 04:01 PM #444
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01-10-2020, 04:14 PM #445Registered User
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Posts
- 1,435
Ya, I would stay away this year.
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01-10-2020, 04:17 PM #446
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01-11-2020, 01:45 AM #447
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01-11-2020, 10:57 AM #448Registered User
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- Denver
- Posts
- 260
Heading to Kiroro area Thursday. Wanted to see if anyone knows where I can get a BCA Float 2 cylinder rental? BCA said Japan has Float 1 and 2 cylinders but just found out Kiroro only has the Float 1 for rent. I’ll have an extra day or so in Sapporo on the front end so something in that area could work as well. Thanks!
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01-11-2020, 01:04 PM #449
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01-11-2020, 02:45 PM #450
OG locals in Niseko are saying they've never seen this little snow in 50 years. But... the amount of snow there is on the ground would make people happy in a lot of other regions. If we only had this kind of snow every year I would still be skiing it. With no new snow in 6 days and mild temperatures, inbounds is rough. This was yesterday in Niseko backcountry. In the lower trees it was better where there wasn't too much bamboo to get around.
I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this contribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.
--MT--
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