01 Jan 2012 - heavy and warm

Warm down in the valley today, thick clouds hanging on the top half of the range, badly sun effected snow on south and east aspects below tree line. Hakuba can be like that. Getting above 2000m onto shaded slopes would have been ok, but the light was looking pretty flat up there so we had a lazy one lower down and found ok double cream soft snow. Probably past the point of nice creamy and into the realm of just plain dense. Stability was good as we skied 35-40 degree slopes with no wind effect found below 1600m on N aspects where the snow is just old warm progressively denser maritime pack. Other better option were available today, however I am trying to save a bit of money and also avoid the busy lift bases during the holiday season.