Japan 2008
Japan 2008
February is supposed to be a great month for visiting Japan, and some of the WSG team will be lucky enough to be heading out to Nagano and Niigata to enjoy the powder & sake. Follow us as we step into the land of the rising sun.
WSG Japan Trip 2008 - the movie
Posted Mon 17 Mar 2008 at 07:12GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Nagano
Right, to sum up our trip around Nagano and Niigata, Japan, here's a short movie of clips and photos. This was filmed using diddy little digital still cameras, so please excuse the quality - it's just a bit of fun.
Snow Monkey movie
Posted Sat 15 Mar 2008 at 23:11GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Nagano
Here we go folks: Snow Monkeys in action...
All credit to Pierre Marasti for editing this fun little movie. Thanks mate.
Snow Monkeys
Posted Thu 13 Mar 2008 at 19:32GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Nagano
:: Nozawa Onsen , Japan resort intro page
Almost at the end of our stay in Nagano, but before we head off to Hokkaido we have to visit the snow monkeys (oh, and check out Nozawa Onsen too). So two days ago we headed down from the Shiga region, checked out Ryou Ski Park for a few hours and headed to the traditional of Yudanaka - home to Nagano's famous snow monkeys.
Excluding the couple of epic pow days we've had, this was the highliht of the trip for me. Not only we're they amazingly entertaining, but super-friendly too. Steve had one jump on his lap for a quick cuddle and I had a couple hold my hands whilst staring at me with quite some intensity.
Keith holding hands with the snow monkeys
Photo: Steve Dowle, WSG
What a sureal experience. I was expecting a kinda' mini-zoo, but with a little more freedom. Certainly, this completely surpassed my mini-zoo expectations and then some! The rest of the afternoon and evening saw rather large smiles spread across both our faces. To give you a better idea of what they're like, we'll be posting a short movie made by our friend Pierre (a Hakuba seasonairre from Belguim) very soon.
The following day we headed to Nozawa-Onsen, a traditional ski town servicing a good size resort also known as Nozawa. With no fresh snow for last few days it was time to hone our skills in the park. Nozawa maintains a nice sized park with a good array of beginner and intermediate features (plus the odd sizey table) and a nice pipe.
Steve was styling out his methods over the biggest table in the park and I managed to land my first cab7 - stoked!
Local rider rocking the hand plant in Nozawa's pipe
Photo: Steve Dowle, WSG
Tomorrow we head to Hokkaido for the last part of the trip; a bit of a holiday and a chance to re-write the review for the infamous Niseko. Looking forward to it.
Myoko to Shiga
Posted Sun 09 Mar 2008 at 21:51GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Myoko Kohgen , Japan resort intro page
:: Nagano
Friday morning everyone was up early. Not because of the fresh snow (a good 20cm’s of it), but because the girls had a train to catch. Posy, Vicci and Camilla had all come to the end of their trip – almost. One crazy night in Tokyo, then it’s on the plane back to London. Steve and I still have another 10 days in Japan luckily.
Goodbyes out of the way, we headed to Suginohara, a smaller resort in the Myoko region. The weather wasn’t the best but the fresh snow made it worthwhile. The upper mountain at Suginohara was closed due to the conditions so we tracked what freshies we could find lower down and then played in the park for a bit.
Keith Stubbs - huge b/s 180 Indy
Photo: Steve Dowle, WSG
Back on the Joetsu Expressway, through a couple of tolls and then up the windy road to Shiga. We drove past some smaller resorts (all linked into the Shiga Kogen lift system) on a tricky mission to find the local tourist office – our next check in point. Out of nowhere pops Mr Nagai (our Nagano Tourism liaison) waving at us from the side of the road. He has a particular knack for this, appearing out of the blue just when you need him most.
Tourist office meeting done and dusted, we checked into the new hotel – an unusual but nice Austrian-themed place – and hit the slopes for the remainder of the day.
Myoko-Kogen... What a find!
Posted Fri 07 Mar 2008 at 09:17GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Japan
:: Myoko Kohgen , Japan resort intro page
:: Niigata
Hakuba done. Bring on Myoko.
After another epic breakfast all 5 of us squeezed in the car (kindly supplied by Mr Nagai of Nagano Tourism) and literally rammed our kit in the back. With absolutely no room for our rather large board bags, we left our decks fixed in the roof racks and managed to pawn off the extra bags to our new best friends Andy and Sarah - who kindly couriered them over in person that evening. What stars!
The usual 10 minute complications working out our Japanese GPS and we we’re off to Niigata. After 2 hours of the ‘iPod game’ we arrived in the most traditional Japanese ski town ever; Myoko-Kogen. With wide eyes and open mouths we drove through the main street – narrow, snow-covered, shop-lined and truly authentic. After the slightly ‘Aussiefied’ Hakuba, Myoko felt like the heart of Japan.
Our accommodation, the Akakura Hotel, felt a bit like a Japanese version of Faulty Towers. With 3 Onsens in the hotel and a double room each we began to feel a little spoilt. Then we met our tourist office liaisons Shirou and Amy – a local Japanese couple. Quickly dubbed by the girls “our mother in Japan”, Amy has to be the most amazing host I have ever met in my life! She spoke excellent English, had an infectious sense of humour, created an immediate raport with the whole team and, with Shirou-san’s local knowledge and networking, got us all the hook-ups we needed in no time at all.
We spent most of the first day at Seki Onsen – a tiny ski resort with good freeriding possibilities and north facing slopes. The girls went photographing in the pow, whilst the boys scouted all the terrain and finally moved on to another local resort, Myoko Akakura (the biggest in the area). This quickly became our mission for the next day.
The second day in Myoko saw us up early eager to track the freshly fallen snow. Andy and Sarah, now kidnapped completely by us, had arrived late the night before and were forced to stay for the shred action ahead. We split in to two groups and headed out… what a day! This resort just blew us away. Without a doubt, Akakura became the whole teams most favourite resort in Japan. The freeriding possibilities, along with the great snow, kept us in fits of over-excited hysterics, giggling like Japanese school girls, all day long. So many lines and so little time.
Andy Kelly laying over in the pow
Photo: Keith Stubbs
Tsubame Onsen
Photo: Keith Stubbs
We finished off this surreal day by heading to a local bar full of Japanese riders. A few drinks later and we we’re laughing with all the locals, taking photos and acting like silly westerners.
Bed time – out like a light.
Iwatake and the night sessions
Posted Wed 05 Mar 2008 at 09:22GMT By
Vicci Miller
Related pages: Japan
:: Nagano
Stumbling out of unconsciousness into the 16-course hotel breakfast is a pastime that should have been made a sport unto itself. Cunningly catering to the appetite of most global nations it has managed to work the Japanese fish, dumplings, rice and weird gloopy brown stuff with no name around your toast, nut bread, egg ‘n bacon, and even chips. Who eats chips for breakfast unless you are German or still a bit tipsy from the night before?
Today we hit Iwatake; hit it like the 200 strong lift queue that we met on arrival. No we didn’t take that lift, as there was a perfectly good one right next to it with no queue. The Japanese were in racing mode, although there were no gates, rules or any clear idea of what was going on, just 400+ people getting to the bottom of a slope very quickly to join back of this stupidly long queue (the first we’ve seen so far in Japan).
Iwatake had great little intermediate Park, well maintained with poppie kickers and great rails; pity the snow was smoo, kind of like hot, sticky goo. So after a few jibs, a short tour around the resort and a sighting of an unknown brown furry Japanese animal with legs, we had a quick highway drive-by to scout large piles of snow to jump off - then back to the hotel for a bit of sustenance before the nights sessions began.
First up we found a really rusty cross country skiing bridge rail that had seen better days - shaped it in 2 seconds and shot it in 4. In the bag and off to hit a Japanese jib sign in the back of the pub car park and a great excuse for a cheeky half. I realised some time later that strapping in would be particularly difficult bearing in mind I had left my snowboard for the cross country skiers back at the bridge.
Round trip in the smallest and not by any means the fastest mini van in the world (although the sound system will vibrate the number plate off!) and on the way home I spy a vending machine lit up like a candle in the wind.
Now no real risk assessment of the area was done, apart from the sweeping statement that it would make an amazing shot. So 7 people were involved setting up the amazing uphill tow-in on the wrong side of the road, driven by Steve “corse I can go faster, I’ll bloody floor it” in the Scooby on the wrong side of one of the busiest roads in Hakuba. Posy was our traffic warden looking out for buses, pedestrians and drunk people stumbling out of the bar. We had several catchers set in place, who we later discovered had no idea what catching involved. After the photographers and flash assistants nearly getting hit by Steve ‘Airton Sienna’s’ rather dramatic tow-ins, we ‘got the shot’ and ran off to the nearest restaurant to celebrate with pints of Japanese Smirnoff ice and raw fish.
Backcountry bandits
Posted Tue 04 Mar 2008 at 07:13GMT By
Posy Dixon
Related pages: Nagano
Cortina… A bit of a ski and then into the backcountry
Day Five in Japan for me and we head off to Cortina, a resort all the locals have been raving about and we’ve been looking forward to checking out all week. On arrival we are greeted by quite a sight – a gigantic Tudor style hotel complete with glass elevators that wouldn’t look out of place in Vegas, but is the last thing you expect to find at the bottom of a Japanese ski field.
Cortina, Japan
Photo: Steve Dowle, WSG
As the day unfolds things become increasingly entertaining. We are given very strict talking to by the patrol, who make it very clear that any sort of riding off-piste / in trees / backcountry without a guide will result in immediate death or being banished to the naughty corner. Luckily we are booked in with Dave an Evergreen backcountry guide for the afternoon, so for the morning we entertain ourselves by swapping our snowboards for skis and practicing some double daffy split leg big air manoeuvres off the side of a cat track. I decide I make a mean skier.
We wolf down an amazing lunch of stunning Japanese sushi and sashimi, that we turn into a tasty ‘Westerner Mix’, by combining fish, rice, ginger, wasabi and soya sauce and mushing it all together into a delightful sort of Eastern risotto. Fully fuelled we head out to meet Dave and collect our snow shoes before heading off into the great unknown.
We finally get to the backcountry zone that everyone has been raving about to find, disappointingly, that the warm morning has turned all the lovely fluffy powder into a solid mush, a similar consistency to our wasabi risotto lunch. Never to be deterred we battle on through the sludge in a wobbly crocodile, following our guide Dave through some stunning trees, although as the weather deteriorates, things become foggier and foggier. And funnier and funnier when Sarah finds a giant tree wedged in her back pack and photographer Camilla disappears down a massive hole.
By this point the amount of laughing I have done combined with the beautiful trees has made up for the distinct lack of pow pow and everyone is in surprisingly good spirits. We finish up and complete the day with a mighty hike back up to the ski field (I think all the giggling and messing around made us miss the last chair home) for a final look at the Tudor monstrosity. The rest of the evening is spent eating the entire supermarket to compensate for all the energy expending hiking. An entertaining day that proves that sometimes, with the right attitude, you can actually polish a turd.
Bing Bong
Posted Tue 04 Mar 2008 at 03:00GMT By
Steve Dowle
Related pages: Nagano
If it doesn't beep or bing-bong then somethings wrong in Japan
Happo backcountry day
Posted Sun 02 Mar 2008 at 13:14GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Japan
:: Nagano
Mega freshies! What a day.
Happo backcountry. Nine great people. Seven and a half hours of riding pow (without even stopping for lunch). Not one piste AT ALL! Pillow lines, wind lips, cornice drops and crazy photo sessions. What more can I say? See for yourself...
Pierre Happo
Photo: Keith Stubbs, WSG
With Camilla Stodart behind the lens, Posy and Vicci Miller representing for the UK pros, plus our excellent local 'guides' we had all the bases covered. Here's a few of our pics from the day - Camilla's shots will be appearing in various magazines such as Document Snowboard and Cooler (plus the next WSG publication) at some point soon...
Vicki Miller, Happo
Photo: Keith Stubbs, WSG
A big thanks to Andy, Sarah, Piere and Jo (who all pushed the level with an awsome display of their own super-smooth riding skills) for leading us to all the best secret stashes Happo has to offer. Kampai!
Hakuba frustration
Posted Sat 01 Mar 2008 at 22:19GMT By
Posy Dixon
Related pages: Japan
:: Nagano
Chauffeur Keith digs the car out of three foot of pow and we head through falling snow to Tsugaike-Kogen – a medium sized resort a short drive up the valley. On arriving at resort we find out that you can have too much of a good thing – the top section of the resort is shut due to the volume of snow that has fallen and high winds, so we are left to shred the lower slopes which a buried under two feet of snow and lots of baffeled beginner Japanese snowboarders trying to do the falling leaf in powder (this doesn’t work by the way).
We cruise all the open runs, which is fun but a little frustrating, as they are pretty flat and the days not quite turning into the epic pow day we were all expecting. However, a quick mystery meat curry at the restaurant to warm us up reveals that we are not the only disappointed ones, we find whole tables of Japanese sleeping in their seats – obviously napping is the done thing around here is the shred isn’t working out for you.
A few photos of the sleeping masses later and we are back to the hotel for an Onsen session – followed by another massive cheap plate of delicious Japanese food. We hook up with some locals Sarah and Andy who are going to take us on a powder mission tomorrow and head to bed excited at the prospect of a slightly more successful powder day.
Park riding time
Posted Fri 29 Feb 2008 at 22:33GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Hakuba 47 , Japan resort intro page
:: Japan
:: Nagano
Woke up to blue bird skies. No fresh snow... time to hit the park!
After a massive breckfast to stoke the tank we jumped in the Toyota for a short drive to Hakuba 47, where most freestyle fanatics flock. Pipe, kickers, rails, boxes, with a few cruisers and the odd tree run thrown in the mix. A fun days riding all-in-all.
Posy Dixon, Boardslide
Photo: Steve Dowle, WSG
Off the hill and time to check out he local supermarket; an experience in itself. Back to the hotel for a shower and change, followed by a quick laptop working session and then a nice (and cheap too) meal at a small local restaraunt. Steve didn't look so comfrotable sitting on the floor with his legs folded underneath him - the lanky bugger. The best thing was eating somewhere with no other western faces.
Hakuba Day 1
Posted Thu 28 Feb 2008 at 10:31GMT By
Keith Stubbs
Related pages: Japan
:: Nagano
After a not-so-bad flight from NZ followed by the Shinsgansen (Bullet) Train to Nagano City I met up with Steve and Posy for a night in the well-known 1998 Olympic-hosting city. And what a perfect way to start a trip... It's snowing!
Day 1 in Hakuba saw us arrive at our swanky accommodation (Hakuba Tokyu Hotel) - all provided by the local tourist office (thanks guys) - then straight up to Happo One (pronounced 'hap-po-o-ney') for half a days riding. Good times; found a few pow stashes, layed over the odd euro-carve and generally buttered around the place in a daze of snowboarding happiness.
Tomorrow it's over to Hakuba 47 for some park riding! The itch is getting satisfied.
Yazawa Day #3
Posted Tue 26 Feb 2008 at 09:47GMT By
Steve Dowle
Related pages:
Rode at Ishiuchi today - a much bigger resort that links to Gala. There was a few little spots of off-run-fun to be had but again, any rope ducking and straight away I had the patrol behind me ushering me back onto the piste.
An interesting fact for ya... In the summer they grow rice up on the slopes and use the lift to bring it down to help dry it out; the only resort that does this in the world apparently, but you never know, it could catch on.
Yazawa Day #2
Posted Mon 25 Feb 2008 at 09:39GMT By
Steve Dowle
Related pages: Gala Yuzawa, Japan resort intro page
Yazawa Gala opened today for the first time in 2 days after the the storm subsided. The off-piste riding situation is a little frustrating though. Literally everything was roped off and with all that powder... aggghhh! Nice to be back in the snow though.
Yuzawa Day #1
Posted Sun 24 Feb 2008 at 22:51GMT By
Steve Dowle
Related pages:
Arrived in Japan! I've 3 days on my own until Keith & Posy join up, so after landing in Tokyo I headed to Yuzawa - a 90 minute bullet train ride - to cover some of the smaller resorts in the region.
So its been dumping and I mean properly dumping; the last 2 days. I headed straight out to grab some food and whilst wandering the streets of this small town I noticed there's no street cleaners in sight; no Vail-style heated roads, but instead, an ingenious system of watre sprayers everywhere built into the roads. Take a look...
I'm really hoping the mountains open tomorrow.
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