14 Dec 2011 - dry snow

Yesterday I toured up the Happo ridge to 2360m. With a number of different ascents and descents I travelled extensively on both south and north aspects. For technical details regarding the snowpack refer to the daily Japan Avalanche Network reports for Hakuba (link over on the right under the weather data).

In short: south aspects have been cooked in the sun. Most of the day the shaded air temp was at zero or above all the way to 2300m. This is understandable given the high of +7 at my Wx station (it was +9C down at the train station!).

Shaded north aspects had great skiing. Steep north slopes had new weak cornices that I kicked off and triggered Size 1 soft slab avalanches.

The most significant rain crust in the pack is a tricky one to nail down. I did not find it in the top 250cm and 2360m. Below 2280m it gets thicker and is buried between 30cm and windy ridge areas and 50cm off the ridge at 2020m. It was not producing any easy results in stability tests.

Today was a classic early season Happo day. Good to see the regular local Japanese backcountry faces putting on skins in the morning, and also some new experienced foreign guys in town as well. A great crowd on the ridge today.

First day out on my new DPS Wailer 112RP's. What a special ski.

This morning: very few drops of rain, warm and windy at valley bottom.

More shots from yesterday: