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Kusatsu 1 Mar 2014

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We headed off on Friday night for a weekend at Kusatsu, or more accurately two nights at Kusatsu with one days skiing at Kusatsu and one day at Kagura.

The trip up got off to a slow start due to an accident on the expressway, and we weren't even on the Kan-etsu. Eventually we got out of Tokyo and after a smooth run up the Kan-etsu made it to Kusatsu. One again was a bit disappointed with the amount of snow on the drive in. Although there were large piles of snow around from the big dumps recently it was pretty obvious that no new snow had fallen since. The weather reports were forecasting snow for Saturday afternoon and night, so I was hoping for at least an afternoon with good snow.

Rika and I got up early Saturday, drove the couple of minutes to the base and after purchasing a family ticket ( 6,000 yen for one adult and one child, saves 1,200 yen) we were on the lifts by 8:45. A couple of laps round the bottom area were followed by a trip up lift 6 to the middle of the mountain and a run back down to the bottom.

The snow was icy and hard, nothing new had fallen for a long time, the surrounding hills were pretty bare, and there was a distinct lack of snow covered trees. It didn't help that visibility was bad, could only see about 50 metres in front, fortunately both Rika and I know the lower slopes of Kusatsu well enough that 50 metres was enough.

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Rika decided she wanted to have a lesson so got that arranged. <rant> Rika is 6, and although she has only skied for 8 days total is a good skier, has no problems coming down intermediate runs, and likes climbing the sides of banks and skiing down. But, because she isn't at elementary school yet she is in the kids class. At Kusatsu this seems to mean no matter how good the kid is, all they are taught is how to do snow plough turns. If I'd know this before we would have spent the morning skiing together.</rant>

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Once Rika started her lesson at 10 I headed up the mountain. At the bottom gondola station remembered I hadn't started the ski tracks app on my phone. Did that and up the gondola I went. Going up the top lift, lift 10, showed how little snow there is at the moment. Last year the run under lift 10 was an ungroomed powder run, this year it's closed off with bare ground showing though.

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I lapped the gondola a couple of times before heading down to the base. The run down from the top of lift 10 to the base, is long, and fun. Possibly because of the snow conditions, or maybe because of the visibility but the top of the mountain wasn't busy, most of the people there were down the bottom half. This makes the run down a bit of a slalom once you hit the beginner slopes. this was also the only place I crashed and burned. Turning to avoid a boarder that had just fallen over I caught my ski on a hard icy piece of snow and took a big tumble. Three days later the bruise on my chest is still sore.

After Rika's lesson was over we met up with Mami and James. While James was showing me how he could sled down the kids sled run Rika decided that instead of skiing with me for the afternoon she was going to go to the hotel pool with Mami and James. So after taking James sleding on the big sled run, and watching him eat an ice cream (I wasn't allowed to leave till it was finished) I headed off up the mountain again, and the others took the car back to the apartment to go for a swim.

I spent the rest of the afternoon alternatively lapping the gondola, and lifts 9 and 10. For once managed to time it right and got on lift 10 a couple of minutes before it closed. But this did mean that every other lift at the top was shutting, got down to base in time to go up lift 4 just before it shut, but that was it. By this time only lift 1 and 3 were open and the queues at each were too long for me.

Despite the promise of afternoon snow it never appeared, got a little bit of rain, but no snow. there were occasional breaks in the mist/fog so I was able to get a few nice photos.

Overall it was a nice day. the snow could have been better, actually it should have been much better given the time of year. The other thing about the day was how warm it was. I usually ski with three layers, two Uniqlo heat tech and one cotton, under a Colombia fleece jacket zipped into a Colombia outer shell. Today I had on only once inner layer, and the under arm vents in the outer shell open, and it was still warm.

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Not much snow on the surronding hills


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Looking back at lift 9 from the main run

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The view forward, taken from same spot as previous photo


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Checking out the steepest bit of the main run down


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Wider view of previous photo

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Top of lift 7

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Is snow meant ot look like this, part of lift 7 in background

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Exiting lift 8

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Exiting lift 6, the closed mountain road can be seen in the middle of the photo.

This is the first year, in the three years I've been going to Kusatsu that I've seen the tar seal of parts of the closed road while going up the gondola. the lack of snow was also apparent went going up lift 6, what in previuos years I assumed was large piles of snow, turns out were very large rocks, there goes my plan for getting of the lift if it ever stopped by jumping into a big snow pile. Last year I was at Kusatsu the same weekend, and the year before, one weekend before, so for the same time of year the snow coverage has gotten worse each year,

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Can't see much

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There were brief periods during the day when it cleared a bit

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Lift 9

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Heading down under lift 9

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This view from lift 9 shows two of the three ways the main run splits at the top. They all join up above the bottom gondola station. The bottom run in the photo avoids the steep section shown in photos above.

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No snow covered tree photos for this report, none to be seen anywere.

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Entrance to lift 6

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Base from lift 1

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another view of base from lift 1

Stats from Ski tracks (not started 10:30, I forgot)
Max speed 46.9km/h avg 12.9
Ski distance 34.6 km, ascent 23.9km
Ski vertical 4406m, ascent 4076
Max alitude 2177m, min 1274
12 runs
06:27:23 duration

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