Start to the season

15 November 2007

Looking towards Goryudake (2814m) after the first snow of the season.

I am at last in my house, over a week of nasty flu and cleaned the cabin to make I a nice home. Not that I care much for ski resorts, but I am now really in the mountains. You can walk 40m from my cabin and ski down a run to reach the lifts. I am not in a town setting at all, which is just what I wanted. Yesterday I marked out the boundaries of my permanent snow study plot. It’s a 2 minute walk from my house. Perfect.

It snowed 70-100cm above 2000m, but still quite warm in the valley. I hiked 1300m from the house to the summit of a small peak above me (Kotomiyama, 2007m). It was a slow knee-deep slog without snow shoes. Snow was mostly refrozen slush with a 1 inch sun crust higher up.

At the moment I drive around the local Pensions looking or unsecured wireless networks to hook onto. My house doesn’t have a phone line and is unlikely to get one. ADSL is out of the question and unfortunately mobile phone based internet in Japan is extremely expensive (unlike Europe). As of now, I am not sure how to solve my internet connection problems.   Please excuse my long period of not adding new content.

Kahsimayari looking pretty good after only one snow fall.  This is Hakuba's biggest face.  It is genuinely steep.  More about it later.

Comments

Submitted by NPM on 15 November 2007 - 10:13pm.

Sounds great Damian. Cant wait to check your little cabin and the surrounding area out. Hopefully can get up there over the next few weekends. What do you reckon?

Submitted by Damian on 17 November 2007 - 10:21am.

I recon you should come up!   But be ready for a slighty rougher living environment than you are used to in Tokyo.  My house is nice, but it is a bit pokey for a tall person and you have to use a ladder to reach the bedrooms.  I like it.

Submitted by NPM on 17 November 2007 - 2:33pm.

Next weekend??? Do we need to bring sleeping bags or anything???

Submitted by goemon on 20 November 2007 - 8:42am.

Welcome back, db! We were wondering if you'd arrived yet.

Give us a holla if you're going to be in Tokyo at all; we've been on fire the past few weeks for our own little move (in Tokyo). No intarweb at our home either (yet), but we can see Fuji-san in the distance.

Although, that may be the closest I get to seeing snow this winter...

Submitted by Damian on 20 November 2007 - 6:05pm.

I will call you, and happy to hear your move has taken place.

Submitted by Damian on 20 November 2007 - 6:08pm.

NPM wrote:

Next weekend??? Do we need to bring sleeping bags or anything???

At the moment I am using sleeping bags in my house, so yep, bring yours if you come.  And get yourself geared up for BC travel or you wont be able to have much fun with me (following on from today's keitai mail we had)

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