Tenki and Yuki Diary 6 Feb 08

Know the weather = know the snow pack = know the stability.

Steep Deep Japan Hakuba  weather data for the 24 hours to 7am for 860m asl Max temp +3C, min temp -10C.  -9C at 7am. Another 3cm of snow.   At 7am the weather was still and some sun was breaking out of the thin high clouds.  Barometer is steady at 911mbar.  All in al, pretty stable weather conditions right now.  However a storm is forecast for next week, quite a big one (possibly)

Field observations: Yesterday I travelled in the backcountry to 1950m asl.  Wind was moderate from the NW, air temp -8C.  I dug snow pits on north and south aspects and found that the north facing area I was in had a thinner less stable snowpack than the south aspects. My JAN weather and snow stability report can be found here.  I encourage people to use this valuable resource provided the Japan Avalanche Network.

Please refer to the Hakuba backcountry travel advisory from the guides at Evergreen Outdoors.