Early recon trips

5 December 2007


The NE lines on Shakushidake (2812m)

Still no regular or internet access, but not a lot to tell recently anyhow. I’ve been out on a few recon trips to build familiarity with various back country areas. The late November riding has been understandably poor, but its good to be touring again, working muscle and awakening the desire for adventure and that feeling of accomplishment and discovery.

There is way more than enough winter terrain to keep me busy and on my avalanche toes. And when spring arrives I don’t think I will be sleeping in the valley very often, there are so many good lines and overnight itineraries on offer. It is quite possible to ride one line consisting of 600m vertical 40 degree couloir, followed by 500m vertical of 25 degrees. That’s a nice 1100m vertical fall-line ski mountaineering line that still leaves you at about 1500m above sea level and 700m above Hakuba. Depending on conditions you can skin from there to other lines taking you back into the valley giving broken short descent sections covering the remaining vert into valley. I doubt that this last 700m would be first class in late spring, and there would be some low angle riding and scrub bashing involved. But it compares to lines that I would gladly tackle in the European Alps, and that makes me happy.

Ridge and bowl between Norikuradake (2450m) and the front side of Korengesan in the distance (2740m)

When I visit up behind Tsugaike Kogen and look south across the Hakuba section of the Kita Alps I instantly see that I made the right choice for ski mountaineering, freeride and back country ambition in Japan. It will take several seasons to safely accomplish only half of what can be done in this section of the ‘Japan Alps’, even with 3 months of powder followed by 3 months of spring steeps. I would like to be closer to the Kamikochi area for its incredible terrain, but Hakuba has been able to offer a friendly small town community and support network as well as terrain access.

These are real mountains with 6 months of snow.

Mio’s new Prior Khyber splitboard arrived last week and she will be very happy with it. My new powder split arrives in 2 weeks. I went for another ultra damp, heavy and tough Never Summer, this time getting a 167 Summit split to compliment my 164 Titan split. For snowshoe days I will still be riding my beloved 167 Dupraz or my 157 Head Intelligence for steep technical work on harder snow. On other days I will tour on skis. I want to be a good skier by the end of this season.

Last week we crashed our Mitsubishi Delica van only having owned it for a week. It was a scary experience that could have had a much worse outcome had we missed the telegraph pole or collided with any oncoming traffic. An accelerating downhill slide into a violent random conclusion is not a pleasant feeling. I pretty quickly translated the experience into a reminder of how quickly things go wrong and situation control is lost, for example, avalanche. The vehicle will cost more to repair than it was worth, so we lost several thousand dollars but only came out with a scare and Mio has some nasty bruises. We are now buying a cheap Kei Van (650cc Suzuki Every). From a fuel consumption and pollution perspective the whole world benefits from our misfortune and that’s not such a bad outcome. Thanks to Tony at the White Horse Hotel for lending us a car in the interim.

Comments

Submitted by SC on 7 December 2007 - 7:19am.

Hakuba is better, your are right. Kamikochi is rather for summer & mountaineers, not for snowers. Have you been at Otari area? Both Ohnagi-yama & Amakazari-yama are paradise in the period of March mid thru June mid. Tough and dangerous in Jan to Mar. I've never been there in Dec, though it might be better to have sniffs for the spring snowing. You must meet Yamada-san, the owner of Yamada Ryokan, who got be many winners in Japan Alpine & Tele ski races. He is a famous skier and very busy, so you may ask him to introduce any local snowboarder of him. Yamada Ryokan is very famous among backcountry skiers and spa enthusiasits. You must visit Yamada Ryokan once, and get be a friend with Yamada-san.
Soory for your car crash. ODAIJINI to Mio.

Submitted by Damian on 7 December 2007 - 10:06am.

Hi SC, I trust the Tateyama trip was a success?  Thanks for your comments regarding the car crash.

In terms of terrain, I don’t necessarily think Hakuba is better than Kamikochi. I would rather be in Kamikochi area and have access to the terrain and in the surrounding valleys, Norikura in the south and best of all, the Hotaka ropeway, which is closer to alpine Europe than anything else in Japan. The ‘problem’ (its actually a good thing) is that the area is hard to reach for regular Tokyo commuting for Mio, and does not have a community like Hakuba.

In Otari, I have been looking at Amakazariyama (1963m) and Onagiyama (1566m) in my mapping software, but don’t know anything about them ye.  Onagiyama looks fantastic. There is so much terrain and only 6 months per year to ski it, or less if it is spring terrain.

We dont know Yamada-san or his very nice looking Ryokan and Onsen.  Its a shame, I would like to.  We have a celebration next January, so perhaps we can spend a night there then and meet Yamada-san.

Amakazariyama

Onagiyama

Submitted by montoya on 7 December 2007 - 1:01pm.

Hey there, sorry to hear about the car. It looks like you now have the same model as we do (Suzuki Every-wagon 4WD). It's ok for getting around and sleeping overnight (though a bit small compared to friends with their Toyota Hi-Aces). Looking forward to hearing more about your trips there. So far we have about 9-days on snow, at this point mostly getting our legs in shape and familiarizing ourselves with our new SLR cameras.

By the way my wife mentioned a popular winter route in the Kamikochi region (I think more for mountaineers than yama-skiers per se) is to climb Chogatake from Tokusawa along Nagakabe-one. We climbed it in the summer, it's a heavily forested route with views only at the top, but it's definitely worth it: http://www.backcountryjapan.com/index_big.php?id=74

ciao

Submitted by Damian on 7 December 2007 - 4:37pm.

Hi Montoya, thanks for the post. Good to hear you are out there and active. I have had 7 outings, but none of it worth while back country. The whole car incident has been an early hurdle. Plus I have no week-day touring partner yet. Plus it all new terrain and routes to me (that I have been discovering unassisted)

As for familiarising yourself with new SLR cameras, judging by the photo you linked it seems that you are pretty much on top of your game. It’s a great shot.

I don’t know the Kamikochi route you mentioned but will add it to my list of research items.

Looking forward to touring with you both soon.

damian

Submitted by montoya on 7 December 2007 - 5:30pm.

Hi Damian, we're definitely interested in touring with you on the weekdays. From what we are seeing in the Yuzawa region I think we'll need another 1-1.5 meters to start doing bottom-up hiking at the mountains around here. I guess the snowfall is different there though. Anyway, when you think the time is right and conditions are good, please let me know and we'll make a road-trip over there.

ciao
-George

Submitted by Damian on 7 December 2007 - 6:07pm.

I'll be up above Tsugaike all of next week for day trips, depending on the weather. The snow is great above 2000m. In fact, 1500m N aspects has 45cm of creamy powder, a bit damp in blower standards, but very smooth with a good base. If you want to join me then please do so. There is loads of good snow up there, but I know nothing about the snow pack in the bowl. Plenty of snow for transport right now, with some wind aloft. I want to check the main bowl from Norikura pretty carefully. The run back into the valley is below average, possibly still via gondola (and if not, via piste – still a thumbs down from me). Its possible to get some excellent riding up there, just not a fraction of the effort/reward ratio that will be available in a few weeks. No loss to me, I am still very much in familiarisation and recon mode anyway.

I took this profile today at Hakuba 47 (dated link below text), got good results. But I don’t expect it to correlate with the Norikura bowl at all.

Submitted by SC on 8 December 2007 - 7:00am.

No good snow weather sevice has been like NCRC SNOWTEL in the US.
Then, Weathernews Co. started a service, Ski Resort Snow Record & Forecast, where you can see daily snow pile amounts of the past 7 days, a some improvement in Japan. Sorry for no English support.
http://weathernews.jp/ski/
e.g.) Happo Ski Resort : http://weathernews.jp/ski/cgi/search_result.fcgi?id=34810

Submitted by Damian on 8 December 2007 - 1:30pm.

Thanks for the weather service link, I didn't know about it.  I like the way they forecast snowfall in cm/hour, rather than the total amount expected to fall.

What I would really like is if any of the local resorts made available the wind speed and direction data from the monitoring points they have at the top of their lifts.  They monitor wind all the time, and it the most valuable info I need:  wind speed an direction close to 2000m altitude.

Submitted by sunrise on 14 December 2007 - 2:06pm.

I just heard about the crash, glad everyone's ok aside from Mio's bruises. And looking at your other posts and pics sounds like you're having a great time. I hope to get up there at some point so I'll track you down for a gidday.

Submitted by Damian on 14 December 2007 - 4:16pm.

Hi Sunrise, yes the accident was not a nice experience.  Never ever been in one before.  But life other than that is starting to feel great, first time in many many years.  Please do let me know when you are coming up.

Submitted by sunrise on 14 December 2007 - 6:58pm.

That's wonderful, after all those years of slogging you can now enjoy the fruits :) Hard earned and well deserved!
Feel free to email me your keitai #/email whenever you get a chance, though who knows when I'll be up...

Submitted by Damian on 15 December 2007 - 2:05pm.

There are plenty of low-key things for you to do here if you do come.  So much more to the valley than the ski resorts.

Submitted by sunrise on 17 December 2007 - 2:22am.

got it, thanks.

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