We definitely were lucky with snow and being able to choose resorts based on snowfall, did help. Nice powder at Rusutsu when we went.
Rusutsu gives you 5 free days if you have an epic local pass, but those 5 days are consecutive
Rusutsu Day 1: Great Bluebird
nice drive to Rusutsu
I didn't know the terrain so well, my first ride down the gondola, I was afraid of getting stuck at the bottom, but actually it was fine
always hard to gauge if it will be downhill the whole way, I was worried the gondola line had an uphill section lower down
ran the gondola line a few more times, it was excellent
While I really like flow bindings as they are easier to get in and out, they fail in too many different ways. Thankfully I learned my lesson and carry an entire spare emergency binding in my backpack:
kind of sucky that such a thick cable can snap
there you go, emergency backup binding installed
will fix this later, spare cables were ordered and sent home for when I get back
Back on the slopes to esplore the rest of the resort:
Rusutsu Day 2: Windy Post Storm
Knowing that a storm was coming, we went back the next day for more fresh snow, although the resort was half shut down for half the day due to too much wind. Thankfully the back of the resort did open later in the day, but the wind damaged the snow on some aspects of the mountain. Once we figured out where the good bits were, we went to enjoy that good powder ;)
snowy drive to rusutsu, but the roads stayed open
only a few lifts were open in the morning, Mt Isola was too windy
people showed up for the pow day, thankfully we already had a ticket thanks for our epic pass and skipped the ticket line
The gondola run was really good:
eventually Mt Isola opened up
And the tree runs on the correct face of Mt Isola (way from sun and wind) was also quite nice:
and after a bunch of rides, it was time to get back. Yes, there was night skiing, but that didn't really seem worth it after the great powder we had all day:
Defintely got lucky with Rusutsu, great snow even if the terrain isn't super steep in many places.
