Stormy retreat + Married

7 Feb 08

Before the weather turned bad. Taking some time on our approach to Tengu Yama to check the entrance into a  Kotomi Yama chute on the skiers right of the summit .

Kotomi Yama (2007m) during better weather.  Picture taken from Tengu Yama a few weeks ago.  Our approach and retreat travelled up and over the peak via the ridge line.  Kotomi, Tengu and the related cirques have some of the best easy access steep lines in the valley.   You can get 400m vertical of 45 degrees average, with a very good lower angled bottom section of 30-25-20 degrees.  Some people prefer Niseko.

Luke and I wanted to return to Tengu Yama in the Goryu cirque area for another ridge descent.  We were very suspect of poor stability from the outset, and winds were high during the gusts.  We reached our drop in point without much hassle and performed extensive stability tests:  cutting cornices, roped ski cuts and jumping, bombs made from 50kg cut squares of compressed snow.  We didn't just test our entry point, but also the corniced areas on approach.  All signs were showing stability, so we entered the line.  As soon as we did, it started to slide.  Not much into the descent we agreed that the safest bet was to turn back.  Visibility had dropped to 20 meters, the winds and snow had intensified and we didn't have enough time margin to deal with the changed situation on top of the surprisingly poor stability, which deteriorated as we descended. 

So we turned back, first climbing with great effort and energy expense the line which we had partially descended, and and made our way along the ridge on snow shoes, up and down a few small features, back over Kotomi Yama and down the ridge towards home, all the time with a blasting wind and low visibility.  By 1730hrs we had made it off the mountain, just before dark.  We were perfectly safe for 98% of the trip, it was just a tiring and long 9 hour day of walking in deep snow with almost no riding at all.  I didn't use my split board this trip as the approach undulates enough to be troublesome.  This was a fortunate decision as the retreat on a splitboard and without snowshoes would have been far more difficult.  In fact I wonder how a skier in dense narrow ski boots would every have made it back up our short descent and over the cornice to the summit and safety.

The best part of the day was receiving news that, after long delays due to misplaced and difficult to replace documents, our marriage papers had been filed at the council office, and now the law is on our side.  Not that we needed the law to tell us when we were married.