You draw in a sharp, crisp breath of clean air, point your board straight ahead and blast off full speed down a short, steep drop, then up a narrow slope that launches you high in the air. Landing in a meter-deep pillow of fluffy, white snow that swallows your board, your bindings and your knees brings on a fit of giggles and whoops as you float on down the mountainside. To the side, someone launches off a large jump ramp. He goes into a spin, doesn't pull out and lands squarely on his head. Seconds later, he is back on his feet -- the snow is that deep.

Here you are, high above a valley ringed with glistening, snow-crested mountains, and being off-course doesn't matter at all. For that matter, nothing matters anymore, except this fantastic elation that's moved beyond description, beyond the boundaries that separate boarders and skiers. It's the best powder on planet Earth.

There are boarders and skiers the world over who'd give anything to know anywhere like the place described above; to know where they, too, can "float on Earth." Those of you who have spent time in Japan's snow resorts, though, are probably licking your lips in fond memory. Perhaps you've experienced such excellent conditions at quite a few places here. If so, it'll come as no great surprise that those giggles and whoops, and that elation, were all part of a day spent last February at Tenjindaira in Gunma Prefecture -- just three hours from Tokyo and 20 minutes up a ropeway.

Conditions like this pop up all over Japan throughout the winter. Hokkaido is the home of the big mountains and the best snow. Niseko, Furano, Kiroro, Risutsu and Tomamu are just some of the resorts in this northerly land of long, cruising, world-class runs.

South of Hokkaido is the Tohoku region of Honshu, encompassing Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Yamagata and Fukushima prefectures. Conditions there can be harsh, but the rewards . . . hey, they're always blissful. Tohoku has many large resorts like the well-designed Appi and its charming old Japanese-style neighbor Yamagata Zao Onsen, home of the hoar-frosted, pure-white trees called juhyo, literally "snow monsters." South again from Tohoku brings you to Kanetsu, Shinetsu and Chuodo, which includes Niigata, Nagano and Gunma prefectures. The resorts here are so numerous and varied, it's doubtful anyone has truly seen them all.

Serious boarders and skiers will flock to areas that played host to the 1998 Olympics, like the giant Hakuba and Shiga clusters in Nagano Prefecture, or the charming hot-spring town of Nozawa, also in Nagano Prefecture. Those with less time to play with will find their fun in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, an area with dozens of small and medium-size resorts like Gala Yuzawa, with its own shinkansen stop; the romantic Joetsu Kokusai; or the upmarket, skiers-only Naspa Ski Garden. From there, Hokuriku takes over and runs the length of the Japan Sea, hosting small resorts as far south as Hiroshima. All in all, Japan boasts well over 600 resorts, each different from the other, and all quite different from anywhere in America or Europe.

Sure, if you want ski-in, ski-out restaurants and well-organized convenience, North America is probably your style. If you're looking for romance and exotic nightlife, Europe may be for you. But if you ask serious winter sportsters what's most important to them, they'll answer in one word: snow -- and Japan has that covered beautifully (or is it the other way around?)

Even though Cedric Morel was virtually raised on skis in his native Switzerland -- and claims he "skied out of his mother's womb" -- he still yearns for the snow he experienced while living in Japan. Indeed, he's not too Swiss to reveal that he "had to swallow hard on his first trip to Furano in Hokkaido and admit I'd never seen such deep powder in my life."

For his part, Ben Kerr from Australia, who owns a pension and snow-tour company in Niseko-Hirafu, Hokkaido, isn't surprised by the steady stream of foreign powder-seekers visiting his resort. As he says: "Where else do you expect them to go? Nowhere in the world has snow like this!"

He's got a point; indeed, he's got the point: Although Japan doesn't necessarily have more snow than many resorts around the world, it does have better snow. It's all down to the weather.

The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center ( www-nsidc.colorado.edu ) is one place where they get an even closer look at snow than some amateur snowboarder who's just flunked his first "fakie switch." The center's studies in the Rockies have shown that "low-density snow typically falls with light winds and temperatures near -9.5. At colder temperatures, crystals tend to be smaller and more dense, packing more closely together." Thus, the ideal for what snowsters gleefully call "pow," "powda" or "freshies" is -9.5. And you'll be pleased to know that Kutchan in Hokkaido -- home to Niseko -- has a minimum average winter temperature of -11.7 to -7.8. Here on Honshu, Karuizawa's average is -9.7 to -6.1. By comparison, Colorado's minimum is -18.3 to -10.1 -- simply too cold.

Snow is volatile stuff. It changes with each change in temperature and never returns to its original state. This is why at higher-altitude resorts, storms may suddenly sweep in and change the conditions, the snow can suddenly freeze over, or the sun may melt all the powder down. In Japan, though, where resorts are generally 1,000 meters lower than those in the Alps or Rockies, you don't often get such brash temperature changes.

All this helps explain why Colorado native Bjorn Boulding is so quick to answer "Japan" when asked which country has the best snow. "You can wait all year for just one great day in Colorado, but here almost every day is great," he says. "Back home, people go crazy if you have 15 cm of powder, but in Japan you can get days where it is up to your knees or even your waist."

While the snow is the major lure, there are many other benefits to boarding and skiing in Japan, some of which stem from the ski-resort building boom, which lasted from the 1960s till the economic bubble burst in 1991. With so much money to be made, resorts sprang up everywhere, and by the '80s, it seems, everyone was a skier. Now, although the fur-collar coats, tight, white leggings and Vuarnet cat's-eye goggles may be hanging in dusty closets the length and breadth of the land, those who remain true to the cause are having the time of their lives with minimal lift lines.

In his book "Ski Japan," Washington Post journalist T.R. Reid complained that the presence of too many lifts in Japan led to too many skiers on the slopes at once. That is hardly the case now, as the sad but exciting truth is that from a peak of around 18 million skiers and boarders, only around 10.5 million people were on the slopes in Japan last season. However, while those resorts may be suffering, the boarders and skiers are certainly not.

Another bonus of the glut of resorts are the relatively low-priced lift passes in Japan. For example, at the giant Val d'Isere resort in the French Alps, a day ticket costs as little as 35.5 euros (3,800 yen), compared with around 3,500-5,000 yen in Japan and $55 (6,800 yen) and upward in the American West.

Of course lodging and transportation prices are a different story in Japan, but, with a little planning, you can stretch your yen much further. According to Yasuko Okamura, who works with Tabibito Travel, even though a package trip from Tokyo to the excellent resort of Kiroro in Hokkaido, including hotel and return airfare, will cost 94,300 yen over the three-day holiday weekend in February, those departing just one day later and taking a day off work will pay 50,000 yen less.

Bussing it to a resort closer to home is another good cost-cutting strategy, especially with so many resorts designed with weekend warriors in mind. Also, in order to squeeze in as much skiing or boarding as possible, most resorts light the slopes at night -- adding a magically eerie dimension to the fun of it all.

However, the snow story here is not all one of white gold since, due to the recession and falling numbers on the slopes, few resorts have developed their slopes or lifts for this season. Exceptions to this are Naeba and Tashiro, where the world's longest gondola has just been opened between the two resorts. Appi Kogen will also open a new snow park this year in a bid to attract more boarders to its popular slopes.

Elsewhere, many resorts will try to regain their popularity more cheaply. Yoshio Iwata, who represents the 20-plus lift companies that own Yamagata Zao Onsen, is one who believes that rather than service, new sporting trends may come to their salvation. "Current research in Europe suggests that snowboarders may be returning to skiing," he says. "We are researching the benefits of appealing to fun-skiers and participants in other new winter sports."

At Niseko-Hirafu in Hokkaido, however, Sales Manager Daigo Miahara disagrees: "We draw about half boarders and half skiers, and I don't think that will change," he says. Instead, he thinks more visitors can be enticed through special discounts and free days, and also by appealing to families not just individuals.

Shuichi Kozaki, public relations manager for Appi Kogen in Iwate, and Fumisato Sekuzu, sales manager from Alpha Tomamu in Hokkaido, both agree with the family strategy. "Twenty percent of our visitors don't ski at all," says Kozaki. "Our goal is to try to package and sell the idea of 'winter resort,' rather than 'ski resort.' "

While such strategies may help to stem falling numbers, they'll do nothing to tackle the problems most foreign boarders and skiers here complain about -- the most obvious being the lack of advanced terrain. Actually, although many resorts do have advanced runs, they are generally few and far between. Indeed, skiers can find steep slopes at Nozawa Onsen, Hakkaisan in Niigata, Zao and Alts Bandai in Fukushima, to name a few. For moguls, along with these resorts, there's Happo One in Nagano. Meanwhile, boarders can get the pipe-and-park experience at many resorts, including some fine examples at Oze Tokura in Gunma, Arai and Naeba in Niigata, and Appi Kogen. Backcountry-style boarding is also available at resorts like Hakkoda in Aomori and Tenjindaira in Gunma, and is being tried out at Niseko-Hirafu.

Apart from the shortage of long, world-class runs, other complaints include a lack of choices for decent food, nightlife and shopping. Seldom will you be able to find the winter food of your mountain dreams, like beef stew or cheese fondue, though some of the local food, like Mongolian barbecue at Niseko-Hirafu or sushi in Kiroro in Hokkaido, is excellent. Otherwise, the best way to eat well is to avoid cafeterias and head for long-standing local eateries or hotel restaurants. As for apres-ski activities, resorts around well-established villages seem to have a decent nightlife. A few that spring to mind here are Niseko, Naeba and Hakuba, as well as Nozawa Onsen and Zao Onsen.

Looking at the big picture, really, every resort in the world has its own set of problems. Few, though, can boast the range of facilities available here -- and certainly no amount of money could buy Japan's superb snow-producing climate. So though you may search the archipelago for your own version of Colorado or Austria and never find it, you will find some top-class runs, exotic locations, friendly people and -- if the snow is falling -- an incomparable feeling of elation on the way.

As Frank Song, a U.S. snowboarder living in Japan, sums it up: "Nothing really seems to matter as long as you've got 'freshies!' "