31 Dec 2011 - alpine

Climbed Norikura on the way to Korenge, however a blob of clouds on our terrain just didn't want to budge. Everything else was clear, except where we wanted to go (it cleared not long after we left). Up at 2400m it was -12.7C with light winds variable but mostly from the south and flutters of snow from our personal cloud blob. We did not see any avalanche activity in our area, however there is plenty of wind effected snow about with soft windslab pretty easy to find above tree line. We skied perfectly ok soft alpine snow with pretty easy fast turns above 1900m. Below that anything with sun during the day was heavy and starting to crust over. There is still loads of good soft snow to be had on shaded aspects protected from wind. Watch out for slabs on steep slopes that are sitting over low density powder.