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

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

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.