Kanetsu Expressway Grief vs Sunooooparu

Hi Everybody!

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Trying to eek some fun during the weekends, and weighing up two options:

1) Marunumakogen
2) Aizukogen Takatsue

Both are higaeri via Bus or the tobu overnight train, sadly. Can't drive, work's a swine, etc.

I would normally beeline straight to Marunumakogen as I love the range and the pow there, but last weekend I had a H o r r i b l e time getting to Maiko thanks to the conjestion of the Joetsu Kanetsu Expressway from Takasaki allllllll the way to past Numata. This left only 3 hours of board time on slopes that were hard-packed thanks to the hordes, on essentially powpow rocker boards. It also left a very bitter taste in the mouth and a very sore arse. I'm willing to hope that the traffic was just a one-off, but is it pie in the sky?

Alternatively, the 'safe' option is Takatsue- I live in Kasukabe so getting an overnight train to Aizu on the Tobu snowpal is too easy. Negative points are that I don't really sleep well on the train (too tall for J-town), and the snow/track is IMHO nowhere near as fun as Marunuma.

So, boils down to whether I can risk the roads. Marunuma's bus leaves Omiya at 7:20 on sunday March 9; do people here reckon the traffic will behave by then? Has anyone else had some Joetsu Kanetsu woe? Or should I play safe and get more earlybird time at Takatsue?

Thanks in advance!