Maddest thing I've ever seen in a ski resort

Mountain bikes are for mountain tracks, skis and snowboards for snow resorts. It's really that simple. Whoever thought of mixing the two is probably still recovering from serious injury.

These photos were taken on Dec 23rd: we went on a road trip to Shiga Kogen ski resort in Nagano prefecture. The bike race took part on a resort piste: we were allowed to board down alongside the stragglers.

The bikes were not as quick as we thought they'd be: it looked like a lot of leg muscle power to was needed to get through some parts of the course. For the steeps, it seemed like a case of closing your eyes and hoping for the best...

Happy christmas !

Well we may not have had a lot of new snow but the conditions out on the hill are perfect. The difference this year from last year is that the tempratures keep really low, even with blue skies like yesterday the courses are keeping really fresh. It looks like the next new snow will be with us by the weekend which will help the lower resorts in the town. (We went on a tour of some other resorts Shiga Kogen and Nozawa, at this stage Kagura has the best conditions out of them all).

First day out at Kandatsu

Yesterdays conditions at Kandatsu where excellent, the snow that settled the night before had been groomed and there was hardly anyone out, but 2pm I was still finding groomed patches that no one had been over. It was some of the best groomed conditions that I had ever been on without having to wake up early! This weekend sees another batch of town level resorts opening such as Naspa Ski Garden, Yuzawa Nazakato and Ipponsugi. We hope you enjoy the weekend.

Blue skies and powder snow in Tashiro

Today was the first time that we had the chance to try out a few runs in the Tashiro area of Kagura ski resort.

After quickly bombing around the resort just to make sure that all the runs were still there, we ended up taking one or two slight diversions, finding some great runs and fresh powder snow.

The weather was very changeable: periods of deep winter blizzards interspersed with bright blue skies. I took these photos while the sun was out (click photo for a larger version)...

Kagura ski resort

Slight diversion in Tashiro

Gala Opening Day - still dumping snow

Saturday saw the beginning of the season in earnest. Whilst we've been enjoying the snow up in Kagura for the past few weeks, it feels great when the town resorts open up as well.

I got to Gala in the afternoon. It would have been better to have some more time on the slopes, but it took a while to recover from the night before - the opening night of the bottle bar...

This was a shame, because the snow conditions are fantastic. Its been snowing heavily on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Gala Yuzawa, 15 Dec 07

bottle bar opens today !

I woke up this morning to light snow outside my window but now its starting to fall quite heavily this is good news for GALA which is opening up today, its set to snow till at least Sunday. This Saturday also sees the Kagura / Mitsumata / Tashiro area becoming fully operational. They are definitely having a good start to this season. This Friday will also see the Bottle Bar opening up from 7:00pm. We hope to see you in there this season.

Guinness World Record Confirmed!

I got the certificiates through for the Guinness World Record today - official confirmation that we broke the record for different ski lifts ridden in 1 day. On the last day of the season, Patrick, Josh and I beat the existing world record of 42 lifts, by riding 44 in a day.

Here's what the certificate looks like:

As an added bonus, the certificate puts Josh down as being from the UK when he's actually our resident Aussie at the WeLoveSnow office.

Surely someone out there can do better this season?!? We rode 44 lifts, this on the last day of the season when there were a lot of lifts closed and no night-skiing...

Whilst I've linked to this many times already, here is a description of the day, and a video file of the record breaking attempt. (The video was taken on the last day of what was a short season for the lower resorts last year)

It's still dumping snow!

Another day of snow and another day of work. Thankfully work is standing on a ski slope making sure people have as good a time as we do. It has been snowing constantly for two days and the conditions are perfect in resort (although plenty of shovelling to be done by businesses to clear snow at town level). The lift lines are just full of grinning faces of those that are lucky enough to be up there today. It'll still be great at the weekend so don't depair if you are reading this at your desk.

December skiing starts with blue skies

Snow enthusiasts are still enjoying the fantastic start to the season. They were out in force this Saturday taking advantage of the good conditions so of course, we had to join them. With blue skies in the morning the weather was playing its part too. The clouds started to come in during the afternoon and we hope it is the start of the predicted snowfall for this week. We'll keep you updated but in the meantime have a look at some of the photos from the weekend.

Kagura on Friday 30th of Nov

The early seasons runs are just getting better, trying out all the different conditions and getting back to last years levels. Friday was again blue skies with the sun beating down, but it was colder you can sense the real big dumps of snow are on the way. The melting and freezing of the courses has made them really quick, Kagura Gondola course on full throttle is the quickest it has been in a longtime. (The re shaping work in off season makes it a straight through race with no slowing down half way like last year). One down side (still rather take the blue skies at this stage) is that no new snow has meant the deep moguls on the challenge course. Get a tin hat and ready for trench warfare attempting to fly down this one.

Forecast ahead looks like the snow will return during mid week, although still rocking at the amount of early snow, we are greedy for a new fresh dump. I had a chance to take the camera out a few times so hope you enjoy the shots below