Snow tales
I went snowboarding in Myoko, Niigata Prefecture, during this spring vacation for the first time in my life. I was very happy to see so much snow in Niigata because I had never seen snow covering the ground completely! In Ise, my town, we have little snow and usually it melts soon.
I also saw much snow when I went to Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, this March, and I felt that the texture of the snow in Takayama was different from that of the snow in Ise. My grandmother, who is from Gifu, and one of my friends told me that snow crystals fall in the colder parts of Japan and that it doesn’t happen in Ise. I don’t know if there is any scientific evidence that proves this. Do you know anything about this?
I grew up in the mountains, where children usually know how to ski by the time they enter grade school. So I did plenty of skiing as a little lad, but I stopped when I was around 16 or 17.
I also have a scar on my head which took about three or four stitches to sew up: that's because skis have fairly sharp edges and because people used to think it was a good idea to attach these things to your ankles with a piece of string to prevent them from sliding downhill if you fell over and the binding disengaged. Not a good idea, I tell you.
I'm no expert on snow, but I remember ski wax. I had a carton which held three bars; one silver, one gold, one red, and you rubbed the stuff onto the ski surface to make it glide better. The three different bars of wax, of course, were for three different types of snow, but I don't remember what they were.
But there are mountaineers and ski instructors who have an amazing vocuabulary for different types of snow, from the fluffy, untouched "powder" right down to the harsh glacier-like stuff that forms when the snow melts and then freezes solid.
A search hint: if you type types of snow into Google, you won't get the best search results: google will search for pages that include "types" and "snow", and it will leave out "of" because that's such a common word. If you put your search request in quotation marks, however, Google will search for the whole phrase. Here are the search results for "types of snow".
Hi All,
Mmmm - snowboarding. One of the great pleasures of living in Japan is the great snowboarding season. I come from the north of England, where we do get snow, but don't really have the mountains for any fast runs. Personally, I'm a big fan of Shiga Kogen, Hakuba, Rusutsu amd Niseko. By the way, why is Niseko always spelt in katakana? Anyway, if you're looking for information on snow, take a look at this:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/
Thanks!
Thank you for the information on snow! There were many photos on the linked pages and I enjoyed looking at them very much.
I don't know why Niseko is always spelled in katakana either, but I guess that the name Niseko comes from the language used by the native people in Hokkaido, Ainu. The place names in Hokkaido are very unique, and even Japanese people have difficulty pronouncing them even though they are written in kanji. I've found a page which shows the place names in Hokkaido and their origins, but the page is Japanese only!
Ayumi Sawa :: April 23, 2003 01:43 PM
Did you take the image with a mobile phone?
Maybe what you talk about is diamond dust. It often happens when it is colder than -25 C in moist air, because moisture of the air freezes and flutters.