Uminosachi Uotora Minamichita-cho

By today, fatigue had set in... my left knee is still trying to recoup muscle from its time off after my operation so I knew i wasnt going to be invincible this time round. Snow was still awesome and after a few relaxing runs and lunch I slowly made my way back to camp. The highlight of the night was to be the fire festival, held once a year as ...

Condtions today were the same as yesterday - snowing and very overcast. But not wanting to miss the opportunity, we decided to head back to Iwatake in search of some open lifts. The powder was once again thick and abundant, providing good cushioning when I fell head first down the hill : p. Lunch was a "hamburgy curry" that instead of being full...

Woke up this morning to the snow coming down in sheets. The fall over the night had been pretty impressive and estimates were that the temperature today could get to -20 with a windchill factor included.
Still, the slopes are there for riding. We headed out to Iwatake after waiting outside 711 in the falling snow only later to realise that t...

Morning. Temperature - about -5. Visibility: overcast Expected low for the day: -12.

Unlike yesterday, the conditions here at Hakuba took on a more darker mood as the elusive sun failed to make an appearance. Nevertheless, not wanting to be deterred, we headed to Goryu and 47 in search of some nice runs.
We made the trek to the lo...

Today was the first day of skiing the slopes of Hakuba. After getting only 4 hours sleep, we were up at 7 getting ready to hit the parks. I made a diversion to the ski rental shop to pick up some K2 apaches before heading to the Gondola to get up the hill.
Unlike Australian ski parks, Hakuba uses a tag system where you must scan your card to...

Not really much to say about today. The flights and waiting for them took up most of our time, though relief was felt throughout the entire plane when our plane took off from Sydney. However, the happiness was short lived as we arrived in the shoebox of a international transfer lounge that is at Gold Coast airport.
Finally boarding the plane...

Arriving at Nozawa we had snow falling heavily onto the slopes and we excitedly although very tired hurried ourselves along to the ski hire shop. We met up with mark again who had left Tokyo early on the second and been at a monkey park. The largest size boot they had was a US 12. I just fitted into it although a next size up would have been pre...

first day; we had to catch a bus from shinjuku to hakuba which took us 4.5 hrs to get there. when we arrived at hakuba we've arranged a pick up from the hotel that we will be staying for the next 5 days. (hotel phoenix wing) we were greeted by a nice young guy at the happo bus information centre from the hotel. we were surprised that the guy who...

We left Nikko for Nagoya via Tokyo, the whole journey took 5 hours by train. The only thing we could tell to do in Nagoya was to see a castle but we arrived too late so instead we went out to dinner and watched movies on the laptop. Greg got extensive assistance in planning out our next day with our hotel clerk, deciphering the train schedule si...

Notre plan de depart incluait une courte etape a Matsumoto avant de rejoindre Kamikochi dans les Alpes Japonaises. A Matsumoto on a pu visiter un chateau construit en 1593, un des rares chateaux japonais encore debout de nos jours (c'est-a-dire qui n'a jamais ete attaque ou brule). Ils etaient tous fait en bois, apparement ils n'avaient pas la t...