Steep Deep Japan

10 May 2010

Hakuba Yari viewed from my house at 11am after the descent

I got out of bed at 15 minutes to 5 and was pulling on my ski boots in the Sarukura carpark and hiking at 5.30am. Exactly 5 hours later I was back at the car, then home with a beer and planting carrots at 11am looking back up at Hakuba Yari ga Take which that morning I had skied. If you will excuse the lack of modesty, even for me it was fast and I was a bit puzzled at how I did it and what to do with the lingering motivation and energy high. The slow pace of carrots seeds was relaxing, but I decided to switch to ditch digging instead. Then back to carrots once by buzz ran out.

The very top of Hakuba Yari, 2903m, viewed from the west flank of Shakushi. I skied the NE face as pictured.

Down the hatch

26 April 2010

Matsumoto-san called me at 7pm to see if I wanted to join him and his friend the next morning for a ski tour from Hakuba Otari Onsen to Myoko Kogen. The timing was perfect and what I had been planning as a two day tour for 2011 was going to happen the next day.

Otari Onsen is a famous access point for a lot of very good backcountry near to Hakuba (a 20km drive from town). Myoko Kogen is a ski resort area in another state – Niigata. You can see the volcanic Myoko range from Hakuba.

Time: It took 11 hours 40 minutes to complete the ski tour (with a long relaxed lunch break).
Distance: 30km by ski
Vertical climbed: 2700m
Vertical skied: 3400m
Summits Skied: Kana Yama, Hiuchi Yama, Myoko Dake.
Return Journey: local bus, train to Nagano City, bus to Hakuba. 2.5 hours in total.

The sun rises. Our home range above Hakuba in the distance. The first early morning ascent started with a lot of rock-solid frozen spring snow and some hairy traverses. We started at the foot of that long dirty slide path near the cliffs.

Off the steep icy overnight re-freeze and on the main ridge heading for Kana Yama (2245m)