My brother and I had not seen each other in about 7 years, and before that we managed to cross paths perhaps once or twice in 5 years. At the moment he is living with me in my little cabin in Hakuba, staying for 6 weeks. Today we went backcountry snowboarding. As we sit and review our pictures of the day I look outside the window and see the line we rode together.

From the top of Goryu ski resort in Hakuba you can access two large cirques. The first and most visible starts at the end of the resort lifts and contains the well known Goryu south faces.

The first cirque, and our ascent route away from the lifts, is marked in orange and covers 2.6km of ridge-line travel. Our line of descent on the east ridge from Tengu Dake (1940m) is marked in blue. The descent takes in 800m vertical fall, excluding the run-out through the river valley back to Goryu ski resort. The second (and superior) cirque is partially marked in green. That might be our next outing.

We chose to fully circumnavigate the cirque and take the ridge descent to cover as much ground as possible, rather than pick off one of the better and steeper lines. This was a recon trip to take advantage of the completely calm conditions. Snow stability had improved from the previous day however there was obvious crossloaded slab on ice.  Before dropping in we used a rope to secure ourselves and dig around the point of entry.  We also cut a small cornice and threw a few pack-bombs.  Nothing was sliding.

Most of the ridge-line descent is visible here, cutting through the middle of the shot with Tengu Dake on the upper right.

On the ascent we bumped into the same Norwegian ski movie crew as the previous day. They had two camera positions set up. Its pretty obvious why big mountain film-makers come to Hakuba to get their Japan footage. We watched a few lines being filmed. They skied them top to bottom fast and continuously.

In the middle of the first Goryu cirque is Kotomi Yama (2007m). A big part of our tour was scoping lines in the quality steep playground. To the right are some of the south faces of the Goryu cirque. Happo One ski resort south faces are in the middle ground with Tsugaike backcountry area of Norikura Dake in the background..

Luke makes his way up the ridge. I managed to skin (splitboard) the entire ridge to the summit of Kotomi Yama, after that I boot packed the ridge line. On most days I would recommend crampons or snowshoes over skinning. The summit of Kotomi Yama in the distance.

Looking back down the ridge and onto the Goryu south faces.  The resort is well lower and in the distance.

Our destination - Tengu Dake. From Kotomi Yama the approach ridge undulates and is always corniced.

Luke checks an entry to one of the almost uncountable line variations.  A rabit had traversed under the cornice earlier that morning.

Luke was the star of the only riding shot we took. A few attmpts to get some video footage didn't work well.

The snow was a mix between average powder and pretty good powder on ice or in deeper pillows.  The line is long and enjoyable with multiple ridge pitches and also open areas with well spaced trees nearly the entire way down. The run-out leads directly to our front door, we literally rode until the noses of our boards touched the front stairs. We were happy.

It was good to share the day in the mountains.