Back from Tokyo...

Know the weather = know the snow pack = know the stability.  For previous weather and snow reports use the Diary link at the top of the page.

Steep Deep Japan Hakuba  weather data for the 24 hours to 7am for 860m asl Max temp +3C, min temp -10C and  -7C at 7am. 0cm of new snow in the last 24 hours.  Barometer is steady at 906mbar and the skies are mostly clear.  Wind aloft is moderate from the SW through NW.  The clear night had produced 2mm surface hoar at 860m asl.

Field observations:  Yesterday we travelled to 1600m in the backcountry on south, east and north aspects.  All solar aspects where being hit very hard by the sun on the previous new snow.  South aspects are terrible and will thick crusts each morning and be very sun-soft by midday.  We found an inverted density snowpack, with the least dense layer being 30cm thick and buried 60cm deep.  That's bad.  Above the low density layer was a progressively harder stratified snowpack.  We did not find any significant instability yet were quite concerned about the low density layer buried so deep.  Recent wind appeared to have been scouring north aspects and loading south aspects. My (English) field data and stability assessment from the Japan Avalanche Network is available here.  I encourage people to use this valuable resource.

Please refer to the Hakuba backcountry travel advisory from the guides at Evergreen Outdoors. (Frequency of update is unreliable)