Easy fun days + powder clip

1 March 08

Mick on the first run

First run.

Second run  - in the area of the ridge on the left of shot.   This very easy access bootpack Happo sidecountry rivals a lot I have seen in Europe.  A lot of the good terrain is actually  obscured at the bottom of the shot.

After a sunny day the clouds arrived with 40cm new snow overnight.

 Here is a quick clip of some recent powder fun we have had...

Not a lot of backcountry activity recently.  Last week produced a few days of stable snow and good weather, but that has gone again.  There is plenty to ride with short tours and in ski resorts but I don't like resorts and am getting a  little tired of low altitude tree riding and small vertical tours. Riding powder for the sake of it is pretty low on my agenda vs. obtaining summits and/or planning and executing successful extended backcountry tours in the greater ranges surrounding Hakuba.

So besides a quick trip to Tokyo this in-between stage has been used just having some fun with friends.  My brother is still here and a buddy from Canada has also arrived, so my house is quite full.  Yesterday we met up with the crew from Hakuba House and rode some of the bootpack sidecountry at Happo.  Our first run was good fun.  In the afternoon the three of us from my house turned back on one line with a 40-45 degree entry (about the steepest you can get in the area, despite excited claims of steeper).  There was a lot of hard slab on convexed and then open terrain so we changed plans and hiked out of the icy entry ridge and took a safer way down via another gully and then onto the big triangle area.  It turned out to be a fun, low-sweat casual sidecountry day.  Heavy snow fall overnight and today means that proper backcountry touring is out the window yet again for a few more days.