Spring xmas

23 Dec 07

No photo today, at least only cell phone pictures on a dull cloudy day. Today was warm spring bbq conditions. Mio and I hiked to Tengubara at 2200m where the air temp was +1.6 degrees (!!). That’s 400m higher than the highest resort lifts in the valley. The snow pack is solid in the areas we travelled up to that height. The surface snow is heavy glue, but we still enjoyed our descent. We didn’t go any higher than 2200, however a lot of people did - executing some of the worst route selection I have ever seen, climbing directly upwards into a clearly loaded lee side slope to a thin snowpack below a scoured rocky ridge on a hot day. They were clustered in groups with other groups following up directly below them. In less stable conditions this would have been a recipe for a 7 victim avalanche disaster. Had they taken an easier and fifteen minute longer route they would have avoided all of it. It was horrible just watching it from a distance.

Tonight Goryu ski resort had their xmas festival, with a very impressive firework display shooting out of the snow. It was very nice outside our house with all the different colours reflecting on the snow. Too bad it was raining.