I could have 7-8 days to spend and I want to go to Hokkaido generally. Are the conditions not worthwhile in early March? I dont mind burning a little time to ride powder.

well if you're up in hokkaido anyway bonus.
conditions turn very quickly in japan. you might get a couple of powder days, but it wont be blower.
id personally stay away from niseko, i hate the place, so much that even though a group of my friends are there now, i refuse to visit them.
places id recommend, rusutsu, tomamu, furano

Yeah Niseko strikes me as the big kind of corporate megaresort I'm not really into at home. Plus I hear it's overridden with Australians

Thanks for the recs

yeh its full of the worst kind of australians. no class, expect to see fights and lots of swearing if you go out for a drink.

more challenging than i anticipated. very windy, very wind packed and icey up there and i didnt bring crampons.

So after crushing the tables this week, I've decided to make an impromptu trip to the mountains.

Castle Mountain
Fernie
Panorama
and Kicking Horse again

I debated going to Kimberley but I have been told it sucks and is not steep. The person knows me well enough to know what I like and don't like. I wanted to hit up Nelson, but it was like 4 hours out of the way, and everything else seemed to flow nicely.

I'll be trying to put in 2-4 hours a night and still end the week with at least 20 hours. Supposed to snow Sunday-Wednesday so I expect at least a couple of good days this time around. Booya!

well i ended up going to niseko for my friends 30th. i am totally disgusted.
it dawned on me that some of these people are "those" Australians.
what an absolute ****hole.
totally embarrassed to be born from that country.

Bought a pair of Atomic 171 skis . . . Nomad model.

$450 but 30% off came to $315. Not bad.


I ski in the LOLeastcoast . . . has anyone been to Whiteface in Lake Placid ... I want to make a trip there this season, is the mountain worth it?

Just got back from another week of boarding.

Castle Mountain, smaller mountain near Fernie. Not many people, crazy powder. They had about 75cm in the week. Windy as hell, easily 70km winds near the top of the mountain. A couple flat spots, but the wind literally pushed you across them. They have a huge bowl with knee deep powder and almost all the skiers stuck to groomers which baffled me. My legs were tired by lunch.

Fernie had 26cm overnight and was AMAZING. I spent most of the day on black and double black diamonds. Really got good at hitting bigger jumps and wipeouts were so soft. By far the best day at the mountain I've had this year.

Panorama only had 27cm compared to the 100 Fernie and Castle Mountain had. There were a few spots where I was blasting down the mountain and got liftoff simply because of the speed I was going. It wasn't very busy, and would be an insane mountain if they had more snow. Some mountains are still decent on groomers, but the blacks on this one were really icy.

Kicking Horse had 100cm that week. The double blacks on the backside were full of deep powder. Had a ton of fun, definitely an incredible mountain when it has snow.

Discovered Red Mountain Resort B.C. is one I haven't hit before, and hope to. May have to make another week long trip next month.

Red is an hour away from Whitewater. You can hit both in 1 trip. If your are thinking of doing this trip PM me and I'll give you solid beta.

Alright. How much notice do you usually need? If I do make another trip it'll depend on if a bunch of snow is in the forecast.

and thats my season in japan finished.
was a really bad season in terms of snow quality but i completed all my objectives here and feel like I've improved my mountaineering skills.
Got a few weeks break until I hit Greenland.

A bad season? What about all those days where you were getting like 30cm? Are you doing more boarding in Greenland? If so, that's insane.

If I've learned anything this year from my weeklong trips, it's that I probably push myself too hard to go for a month. And that I could play a lot more poker in the evenings if I stuck to one mountain for a week instead of going to a new mountain every day.

Well its relative...it was a bad season for japan. One of the worst in the last 10 years.
Last year I had 50+ powder days with a lot of those being 50-100cm days.
This year Ive had 20-25 powder days and maybe 5 of those were 50cm days.

Greenland expedition begins March 21. Wont be able to post anything until I return on the 6th of April as we're going to be camping in the middle of nowhere.

Sometimes its better to stick to one place and really get to know it for sure.

20140222_151213 by ozsnowbum, on Flickr

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100cm in a night is insane! Fernie had 46 in the last 48 hours and it was heavenly. I plan on making one more trip this season, a week long when we get a good dump of snow. I still can't believe how great of a workout powder is. It's like sitting in a leg press machine all day.

How late in the season can you snowboard in Greenland?

Id wager you could probably ski year round in Greenland if you had the means.
I think most guiding companies go to late June.

Do you have a powder board? Usually your legs get used to it after a few days

I think mine's a combo. I can't really remember, but it's pretty heavy and stiff. Not sure what a normal weight is for a board ,but I'd guess mine is 3lbs

For those who want to know how much it cost me for 50 days in Japan.
all in AUD
car hire $2910
guiding $1500
petrol $700 (4500kms driven)
tolls $200 guess will see tonight.
lift tickets $780
food $1300

could have spent less on lift tickets. I bought a season pass which I didnt break even on, if I was to do it again, I probably wouldnt ride any resorts.

What about hotels?

$0 - slept in the car

That's a pretty good cost cutter, but how'd you shower? Also, do you ever listen to Royksopp? That song reminds me of them.

onsens every night. usually $5 or free