Tenki Diary 8 Dec 07

Very little to report from the weather station this morning, warm and melty. Saw a kamoshika. Our car-less situation does not seem to be changing which is also limiting access to the good higher altitude snow. Yesterday warmed up and the new snow all but melted below 800m. I went up to Hakuba 47 and dropped 20 meters off the piste over the north side to dig a profile in a clearing (snow profiles here). Snow depth was 130cm at my site. Air temps were around –1C, snow temps no colder than –2C. The last few days produced 45cm of soft creamy powder that has remained in good condition on an ok base. If the snowpack was deeper, the north aspect trees above 1000m would be fun riding right now. Patrol spotted my footprints and looked over the roll to ask what I was doing. He was cool about my ‘avalanche check’ as he called it and believed me that I had no intention of ducking their rope any further (a rope which wasn’t there anyway). I had purposely left my board back up on the piste. He could have asked why I would dig a snow profile on a slope that I wasn’t going to ride. For the record, I have no interest in resort rope ducking or patrol avoiding side country poaching, that’s not back country and it certainly isn’t yama-ski (Japanese for ski touring/ski mountaineering).