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I get up to Kagura and I'm amazed at the lack of cars in the car park and the genral lack of bodies milling around the bottom of the Ropeway. Up I go and this is what I find at roughly 9am...
Not a soul to be seen on the run to the left as you come out the ropeway. The weather is beautiful and the snow is soft, 1 negative is that it hasn't snowed overnight, so I know that the snow is gonna be tracked after the weekend, the groomers are impeccable, soft under the board and groomed to perfection.
Top of the Mitsumata lift, looking across towards Iwappara
Looking down towards the kagura area
You can see the kagura slopes in the top left hand corner
Its the first time I've been here and I've never seen a lot of people making their way down towards the Gondola
Looking up the slope from the Gondola station....again, I'm the only soul
a fine view of the surrounding mountains from the Gondola.....still hadn't seen another person since getting off the top of Mitsumata
Finally get to the top of the Gondola and finally see some fellow riders out enjoying the beautiful day. You can see the hill is mega tracked from the weekend, but the snow was still soft and there were still some great knee deep pow pockets to be had in the trees
at the top of the Kagura area, the ropes are stopping you from heading over to the Forestry course (which I've only seen open once) and these beautiful areas that some lucky buggers were playing on the day before....check out the bottom left of the facing slope. Man I wanna hit these lines!
Looking down from the top of Kagura, the views were fantastic and although the snow looks a bit scraped it wasn't, it was still very soft with loads of give underneath
looking across into Tashiro area, 1st time I've seen the lake totally frozen and snow covered
one of my favourite areas, the hill in the foreground gave me some great runs therough the trees and the hill to the right (out of shot) kinda continues on from it and it too was fantastic. the snow there was still soft and light. Plenty face shots and no one around
In the afternoon, the snow clouds started to move in a the light went flat, making it more difficult to read the layout of the snow. I decided to start heading down the mountain and play in the park area at Mitsumata for the last hour or so.
All in all what a fantastic day, weather was awesome and the snow condition was ace. I wouldn't call it epic, but only because it was tracked from the weekend hordes and I feel I've become a bit of a snow snob since living in Japan.....unless its an untouched pow field or snowing to fill in the gaps then I can't give it 5 out of 5.......Kagura midweek is fantastic. Of the people that were there, a lot were foreigners. I met 2 different groups of aussies and there were a lot of Chinese that were staying in Naeba, out enjoying the empty spaces and fantastic conditions. Winter time is the only time I wish I was back working at NOVA, with the midweek day's off!!
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