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But we were definitely there for the fire festival, and some amazing snow! We stayed at Lodge Nagano for a week - Luke and Renee run a pretty tight ship for Mark the owner - everyone is really friendly and experienced with the area. It was pretty heartbreaking to see some of the pictures from the mountain after their local 6.2 quake. Even more so to hear that they're having to come home due to the current fears.Anyway, onto positive stuff huh
It snowed every single day we were there, pretty consistently - the day we arrived started off sunny, but it started snowing that evening, and there was two more days (1 bluebird, 1 partial cloud cover) where the snow gave us a bit of a breather.
The first day was pretty snowy, windy & we both agreed - a day we wouldn't bother skiing on in NZ - but it was great fun exploring the field - we managed to lose each other frequently, but easily find each other again
we started hopping on the skyline connection double and having fast and furious runs down the pow pow to the right as you're coming off. I started to learn how to ski in powder, definitely not good enough to try real offpiste yet, but sometime in the future, definitely.I think it was the third day that was the most amazing day - it was perfect, blue, they groomed it the day/evening before but enough powder had fallen that it was nice and smooth and velvety. We went straight up to the summit quad and rode those runs a few times, at one point I was yelling out to any who would listen "I can do it, I can do it! This is amazing!" I think I started to achieve a oneness with my skis - trusting them to ski for me as long as my brain told them what was happening, rather than thinking "weight onto my right foot, right pole down" etc
We decided to go get lunch, so rode down the black run to avoid the basin at the bottom of the reds - my first proper black run, and in about 30cm of powder as the groomers hadn't been through yet (one of the gaijan we met suggested that they were planning to mogul this run later - does anyone know if they did?) we had a much cruisier end to the day skiing with one of the girls from the lodge as my knees were playing up
I also was christened speedy by her and Mr Minty as my 165's just seemed to be so fast (I am only 169cm, though heavy for my height) Mr Minty needs to break out his 12 year old lacroix 205s and catch up me thinks.
The next few days were super snowy and then we went and saw the snow monkeys
The second to last day (morning after the fire festival) we got onto the field in the morning, it was a bit overcast, but actually pretty decent conditions compared to the previous days, unfortunately on the cat track from the convention centre to the ticket office I got major calf pain - the previous days had been ok once I warmed up, but this day was horrible. I ended up catching the shuttle back to the convention centre and walking back to the lodge. Mr Minty had a sweet day though exploring the skyline run.
The last full day we had was quite interesting and fun conditions - the wind was so strong that you didn't need to even attempt to carve down paradise - Mr Minty always ski's backwards so I attempted it for the first time, I was going ok when he ski's up next to me and yells "Can you turn?" I thought he meant "try carving backwards" so I tried... and completely caned it. Then I tried tucking and Mr Minty skied alongside me correcting my position and then something must have caught me off guard and again, completely caned it. Then we went into pop-eyes and cracked up at this little kid (who incidentally we realised was the youngest kid we'd ever seen boarding) who was too small and light to snowboard against the wind when it gusted, so he'd slow down and lose his momentum.
Mr Minty also convinced me to go down skyline, even though visibility was really short and I hadn't been down there yet. It was quite nerve wracking as the tracks created by other nervous intermediates has collected quite a ridge of snow, so when I did brave up I'd get taken out by a big ridge of snow that I couldn't see, but we got down, and then took the kamoshika track down to the left hand basin.
Oooo, edit: I did also finally get my tree run! The middle basin - I think it's the Nagasaka basin, had a frequently used, and very icey little run through the trees to the far right of the quad as you came off. I decided to go through, not knowing what I was going to find, shat myself at the ice, the bend in the middle, the thick trees, and the drop off at the end, and then the guy who I only just managed to dodge on the end.
Overall, we had an AMAZING honeymoon - I won't fill you guys in on Hakuba as it was fairly uninspiring for me - too similar to NZ, and lacking the charm and ease of Nozawa Onsen. The food in Noz was fantastic, and I loved the casual attitude and friendliness (provided you had good manners) that everyone exuded. Stay bar was our favoured bar - always service with a smile from Kerry and Rodney.
We really can't wait to go back, and we will as soon as we can.
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thats what I was thinking but I think its more that Bears will tend to leave people alone if they aren't surprised by them tramping through the forest, so if they hear you coming with the bell, they'd rather slink off and not have a bear-human face to face........at least thats how its MEANT to go. 
