The Outdoor Rec Center on base puts on some fantastic trips around Japan for most any outdoor activity. Skiers are treated to many nice areas. Most are day trips, but a couple are overnight trips like the one that William and I went on last weekend to Shiga Kogen. We got up at 1:00 AM... Yes, 1:00 AM and Caroline drove us to base to check in, get William's rental gear, and then crawl onto the bus and try to get the rest of the night's sleep on the 6 hour drive. For some reason, they make rest stops every two hours... That is about the time that everyone is just drifting off to sleep!
When we arrived, William and I each had an additional three or so hours of sleep and were ready to go. The weather and snow were incredible! The sun was out and the mountains were beautiful. William was excited to see that the ski school's theme was Sponge Bob. Heaven!
Shiga Kogen is a collection of 27 ski areas that are all linked together and your ticket works at all of them. William and I tried out three in our area and we had plenty of choices of ski runs. They obviously don't appreciate people who go off the trail...
A couple of the area were for skiers only. No snow boards. It was kind of like old times... We spent the whole day skiing then crashed for the night and then got up in the morning and got first tracks in the inch or so of new snow. It was a wonderful father/son ski vacation and we really did have a great time. We were each other's side kick... at least until we went by the rental shop where they had Sponge Bob on continuously...
William even tried out a black diamond run (Something about the cousins are doing black diamond runs...). He'd really been working on turning a lot with this goal in mind. This is new since he usually prefers to just bomb straight down the hill. He seemed to be able to control his speed and really wanted to try it, so we gave it a shot. He found that there is such a thing as too steep and was happy to practice on the intermediate runs afterwards. At the end of the day when I asked him which was his favorite run... it was the black diamond!
The Outdoor Rec Center on base puts on some fantastic trips around Japan for most any outdoor activity. Skiers are treated to many nice areas. Most are day trips, but a couple are overnight trips like the one that William and I went on last weekend to Shiga Kogen. We got up at 1:00 AM... Yes, 1:00 AM and Caroline drove us to base to check in, get William's rental gear, and then crawl onto the bus and try to get the rest of the night's sleep on the 6 hour drive. For some reason, they make rest stops every two hours... That is about the time that everyone is just drifting off to sleep!
When we arrived, William and I each had an additional three or so hours of sleep and were ready to go. The weather and snow were incredible! The sun was out and the mountains were beautiful. William was excited to see that the ski school's theme was Sponge Bob. Heaven!
Shiga Kogen is a collection of 27 ski areas that are all linked together and your ticket works at all of them. William and I tried out three in our area and we had plenty of choices of ski runs. They obviously don't appreciate people who go off the trail...
A couple of the area were for skiers only. No snow boards. It was kind of like old times... We spent the whole day skiing then crashed for the night and then got up in the morning and got first tracks in the inch or so of new snow. It was a wonderful father/son ski vacation and we really did have a great time. We were each other's side kick... at least until we went by the rental shop where they had Sponge Bob on continuously...
William even tried out a black diamond run (Something about the cousins are doing black diamond runs...). He'd really been working on turning a lot with this goal in mind. This is new since he usually prefers to just bomb straight down the hill. He seemed to be able to control his speed and really wanted to try it, so we gave it a shot. He found that there is such a thing as too steep and was happy to practice on the intermediate runs afterwards. At the end of the day when I asked him which was his favorite run... it was the black diamond!
