June 24, 2006
June 24, 2006
June 24, 2006
June 24, 2006
June 8, 2006
November 25, 2005
April 29, 2005
July 23, 2005Backcountry Skiing – Tateyama area – Tsurugi Skiing
24th June 2006
My time in Japan is winding down and it looks like every weekend an activity has been slotted in. As the snow is getting more and more difficult to ski I decided to pick the June 24/25 weekend as my last ski weekend of the 2005/2006 season. It would also be my last ski trip in Japan for a long long time. I had to go out with a bang so picked a line that would really challenge me physically.The last big grunt of a trip that I did was Hakuba Yari. A big trip like that always leaves a person feeling like they have really completed something. The little trips that I do are also fun but a trip where at the end you are physically and mentally drained you know that it was a really good experience.Day ISo I set a big route for the last ski weekend. We would ski a big couloir on Tsurugidake. The elevation we had to gain for the day would be quite considerable but the terrain would be new and exciting. Dan and Jeremy were up for the challenge so we met early enough at Tateyama Train Station. We planned the timing correctly and were on the snow at 9:30. I told Dan and Jer that I'd like to have our tents set up in Tsurugizawa by 11:00 and be on our way to ski our line. We went our ways as I tried to skin up the Raicho face while they were walking. I made pretty good time to the top although it really drained me because I was sometimes fighting the snow trying to keep my skis from sliding out on me while traversing. It only took 2 or 3 times of having to pick myself off the snow before I said screw it and attached my skis to my backpack and made my way over to the exposed summer trail. I made up lots of time here and was quickly at the top hut. I didn't waste any time getting ready and in only a few minutes was making fun turns down into the bowl below to Tsurugizawa.I found a nice place to put my tent and started digging a platform out of the snow. It was difficult digging but after a little effort I had a platform big enough. Every few minutes I would look up to top of the bowl to see if Dan and Jer were on there way down. But they never showed. 11:00am passed and I had my tent set up and was trying to rehydrate myself as I hadn't drank very much water up until now. Sometime after 11:30 I saw Dan and Jer finally walking up the ridge. This kind of upset me as they were wasting time trying to get a few extra meters of vertical. They finally decided to ski down but stopped a few turns in to take pictures which really had me fuming. When they skied over to where I had camp set up they asked if I was upset to which they already knew the answer. I hassled them enough and set a new time to leave of 12:30. We never could have gotten ready for 11:00am but we could have been ready to go with our camps all set up for when we returned by 12:00.They quickly got ready and we were finally off on our run. We had to ski all the way down to the end of the valley where we would start climbing up the broad couloir. We skied about 500 meters vertical to the bottom of the run. The turns going down the broad valley were pretty good and it was fun looking up all the couloirs that we passed by. Tsurugi is a large and very steep mountain. The ridges that spill off the mountain are very steep and hold dozens if not hundreds of small sub couloirs that feed into the larger couloirs.The snow turned shitty just before we got to the base of our line but it didn't matter because we didn't have to go any lower.Looking up the couloir we saw snow right to the rigdeline way above. We instantly decided to ski that line even though there would probably be many other lines once we gained a little elevation in the large couloir.I shouldered my now very light bag with skis attached and started making my way up the couloir. I set a turn around time of 4:00pm which would give us 3 hours to get up to the top.We quickly gained vertical and were in awe as more and more terrain opened up. A few weeks to a month earlier the dozens upon dozens of sub couloirs would have been skiable. Now they were a mess of discontinuous snow, lines with massive cracks running right across and all with with huge moats that would swallow you up if you slipped off the side. You could easily spend a week in this one large couloir and not ski all the lines coming off the 2 ridges that protected the main couloir.With such amazing views we were able to climb quickly because our minds were not focased on the never ending line of snow to the top.I set a rest area below some large cliffs in the middle and sat down to wait for Dan and Jer. They were just a few minutes behind. We all snacked and talked about the terrain. The main peak of Tsurugi had now shown itself and it too held quite a few little mini couloirs that a month ago would have been very skiable if not just a little steep.Where we rested was the transition in the run from mellow to steep as immediatly after starting out again the slope quickly got steeper. I kicked steps up to the next rock on the side of the run only slipping once. But that one slip sent the skis on my backpack into the back of my head. It hurt quite a bit so once at the next little rest area I got my axe and helmet out for the rest of the climb. For the first time I found that the helmet also protects my head from my own equipment. Dan and Jer changed into their ski boots here because it would be easier to walk in my steps with a sturdy platform on their feet. I made my way straight up the couloir trying to kick steps for Dan and Jer who were coming up behind. Sometimes my boot went in to my ankle and sometimes I was just standing on my toes as the snow switched from slush to ice. The top of the couloir never seemed to end and the pitch only steepened. At it's steepest it was over 40 degrees and near the top the moats along the sides got wider and very deep. A few times they joined with large cracks that jutted into the couloir creating some very dangerous hazards. I looked into a few of the moats and they easily went for 5 meters in places. Falling into one of them would have been almost as dangerous as falling into a crevesse. But we couldn't turn around so close to the top of the run.A few sweaty minutes later and I was kicking in my last steps before getting to the col. I had hoped from here that we'd easily be able to climb up to the sub peaks on both sides of the run however they were quite steep. Also the col wasn't flat at all but instead dropped over into a another couloir on the other side. We couldn't tell if this couloir went or not but I'd guess that it didn't as it dropped right to the valley floor. The mountains to the north were really nice to look at as it was a new sight that I havn't yet seen.Our couloir topped out at 2850 meters which is pretty cool as the summit of Tsurugi is just below 3000 meters. So we wern't that far below the top even though it sat about 500 meters and along a very difficult ridge away from us.We all took in the view for a while but knew that we'd have to get going so we buckled up our boots and clicked into our bindings. Dan went first through the steep section and skied it well. He stopped about halfway down the first section and then got ready to take pictures of Jer. Jer skied it as he skis everything. Fast, efficient and like it's a ski resort which is why he forgot about all the big cracks. So even though Dan yelled at him to avoid a very large one he still almost skied right into it yelling out that he didn't even know it was there. In true Jer fashoin of course I wonder where he had kept his eyes on the steep bootpack up.I came down last and had a fun time. The snow and pitch was pretty good and combined with the scenery made for a great ski.We leapfrogged eachother down the entire couloir taking our time lower down to rest legs and avoid the few rocks that had fallen off the cliffs above. Soon the run was over and we were at the bottom of our valley. We had skied and climbed 850 meters vertical. We had a good rest at the bottom while entertaining the thought of the 500 meter climb we had to get back to our tents. After a few minutes talking about our line I heard a crash above and looking up and saw a huge boulder rolling down the mellow valley. We moved all our gear to the edge of the run hopefully out of the way and watched as it quickly picked up speed on a steeper section of snow. It eventually stopped but left us with the need to be careful and keep our eyes open. The boulder was easily as big as a car or truck.The next little bit of fun came when we had to fill up our waterbottles. Even though a little creek came down right near where we stopped getting around the cracks and moats to the water was a little interesting and involved some fun scrambling on the greasy slabs.With full waterbottles and full stomachs I put my skins on and clicked into my skis for the 500 meter vertical climb back to camp. I left at 4:20 and said I'd be back at camp by 5:30. It was a difficult climb after such a long day but the grade was gentle enough that I could skin straight up the slope. After numerous short breaks I skinned into camp right at 5:30. The climb had turned out to be pretty easy and I quite enjoyed the challenge of the long day.The total vert climbed for the day was 1800 meters with 1800 meters of skiing. Not bad for an 8 hour day. And not bad at all for summer skiing in late June.After dinner Dan's feet were cold so he and Jer went into the lodge. As i've said numerous times I don't enjoy doing this but I also don't really enjoy sitting outside by myself when my friends are inside talking. So after a bit of sitting in the dark by myself I walked over to the lodge and went in to join them. They were sitting around a Kero heater warming their feet and talking to 4 or 5 Japanese men. It turns out that one of the men had climbed Everest in 1983. I've never met anybody that has climbed any of the 8000 meter peaks so that was pretty cool.Day III had a bad nights sleep on my old MontBell sleeping pad. It really doesn't do very much for protecting my body from the snow. But I managed to get my standard 8-10 hours of sleep while in the mountains.The morning came and with it clouds so we wern't able to enjoy the warm morning sun which would have been very nice. But we emerged from the tents instead to high clouds. At least we could see Tsurugi and the very top of the line we had skied the day before.We packed up camp and were on our way by 7:30. Gaining the saddle at the top of the bowl was a little difficult with the exercise we had had the day before but 30 minutes of grunting and groaning later and we were on top. A quick break and we shouldered our bags for the last bit of climbing to the top of our line.We would ski the same line as we skied 2 weeks earlier. It was just a few meters shorter and a little bit narrower which in my books is just fine.We geared up and leapfrogged down the couloir taking the standard pictures here and there of things that we thought would look good on film. At the bottom we skied over to the rope tow and rode it to the top. I was coming up last and when I finally got to the top in pain from the little plastic rod I had to use heard shouting and swearing coming from Jer. Turns out that he had lost one of his new hiking boots somewhere on the last run. He thought that he would come back the following week to find it but Dan convinced him to go back and get it and even joined him for the grunt back up the run.They had a good rest before starting and then skied away while I watched from a bench and had a nap. They had to pretty much walk up the entire run that we had just skied which even though I'm not going to write very much about here was very exausting on them. I wouldn't have wanted to be in Jer's place at all. Dan found the boot in a shallow moat about 3/4 of the way up the run and I could hear Jer yelling in joy across the valley from where I was sitting on my bench. They had had to gain about 500 meters vertical to get the boot. This wasn't an easy little side trip.They skied back down the run putting some more tracks on the snow and were very soon coming up the ropetow one last time.They rested at the top and then repacked their bags and we set off to bus station.As it was only 12:30 when we got back to the bus station Dan and I wanted to try and ski out as far as the snow would let us. I've always wanted to do this and as this was our last chance we fealt that we had better do it. Jer had had enough which I can't say I blame him what with the little boot incedent and the huge climb we did the day before. We loaded all our overnight gear into his backpack and then set off with day bags up the hill right next to the bus station at 1:00pm.We had to gain a fair bit of elevation and once on the top of the first bump it looked like we were almost level with the top of the Raicho face. Dan and I had never skied in this area before so it was interesting seeing everything from a different angle. We had a quick rest as the clouds moved in and wondered how we would complete the traverse out if we couldn't see the route in front of us. We were lucky though in that we had really scouted the route the day before on the bus ride up and that the clouds always seemed to open up just when we needed them to. The traverse went fine for a bit until we came to what looked like a knife edge ridge. I didn't remember seeing that from the bus. We skied up to it and found that it wasn't nearly as steep as it looked from afar however we found that if we traversed high around the mountain we should be able to bypass all the bumps on the ridge. This worked out and we finally found ourselves with bushes in front of us. We knew we'd have to do some bushwacking here but we had to do it in the right place to join up with the next patch of snow. We tried our hardest to spot the next patch and climbed a few of the large rocks around before I finally spotted the snow. We shouldered our bags and forced our way through the thick bush to the snow patch. I had my best skiing of the trip here as the snow was pretty soft and there wasn't any ice bulges to grab at the ski edges. We kept skiing down and wherever possible traversed left trying to find an entrance to the next snow field. I got a little close a few times to the alder patches on the sides and paid for it when my ski went under a branch that was fixed in the snow. My boot easily popped out of the binding and that is the first time I've released from my touring bindings. At least I know they release.We had to walk up a few sections to find a way around sasa fields but once we entered the coniferous forest lower down it was an easy traverse to the hotel where we'd have to board the bus.The traverse was really fun and at the same time very exausting. Dan and I were both spent from such a hard weekend. Once we got on the bus it was really hard for me to keep the little amount of food that was in my stomach down. Sometimes when I exaust myself so much I feel like I'm going to be sick. It's not a good feeling but it is kind of a feeling of accomplishment for me. What a good way to end the season. We skied two routes that we wanted and I think that now I've skied a line on just about all the mountains that I wanted. Now I'll just have to come back in the future and clean up a few of the scraps I've left over.A great season and a great trip in the mountains.Counting up my days on the journals. I skied 52 days of either 3 hours or more at a resort or 300 meters or more vertical in the backcountry. If you count my shorter days in the backcountry around Takayama it brings my total to 65. But I won't count those. 52 ski days isn't bad at all considering that I broke my foot and wasn't skiing for about 6 weeks.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
8th June 2006
After skiing everywhere except Tateyama this past spring Dan, Jer and I headed into this very familier place in early June. The plan was to ski the S-Couloir that I solo-skied around the same time last year.Day 1We finally got onto the snow at 9:30 in the morning and quickly skied down to the the camp area. Surprisingly there were only 2 other tents and they wern't there for skiing.Sadly as soon as we got to the camp all we had to do was look up at the main peak of Tateyama to see that this spring has been both warm and wet. The ridglines were snow free and the S-Couloir was no longer skiable. The main line off of Tateyama wasn't even skiable off the summit anymore. Strange because we just got through a really big snow year.But just because there wasn't much snow in that area didn't mean that everything looked bad. I spotted a really nice skinny run near the bikini line that really looked fun.We quickly set up our camp and after a little food set off up the Raicho face. I was skinning after a long absense. It felt great to have the skis on my feet instead of my back. I was able to skin up to the base of the final steep section which was pretty good. I would have had to walk anyways because the ridge was snow free. I made it to the lodge in 65 minutes. Not sure how long it usually takes us but it fealt pretty good. Dan and Jer showed up a few minutes later and we all chilled. A quick snack and we walked over to the entrance to the Tsurugizawa bowl. There was a lot more snow here and it looked really nice. So instead of just skiing back to camp we decided to get a run in on this face. We hiked for about 20 minutes longer before getting to the end of the ridge and after some more resting got ready for our first run.I had skied this run in zero visibility late last July. It was pretty good then. It being nearly 2 months earlier now the snow was really fun. I went first and made some really fun high speed turns to the flats below. Jer and Dan joined me and also had pretty good runs.We had to hike back up to the saddle but that only took about 20 minutes. We again rejoined the ridge and quickly made it to the top of our second run. I walked to the entrance and could see that the run went all the way and was indeed pretty skinny. Enough room to turn for sure with a little bit of hazard from cracks and very deep moats. I again went first and made some fun jump turns down to the crux where I could take pictures of Dan and Jer. They both skied it really well and we leap frogged eachother down the run getting a tonne of pictures. At the bottom Dan fealt like he needed some more vertical so he went off to hike for another run while Jer and I fealt the need for relaxation. We spent the rest of the day chilling around our camp waiting for the sun to set.I convinced Dan and Jer that an onsen before dinner was better and we set off for a good bath. It fealt really nice. We must have spent an hour in there and as usual I don't enjoy hanging out in the lodges after. I skied back to get ready for dinner while Dan and Jer sat inside drying out their gear. There must have been some miscommunication though because they were in the lodge for well over an hour after I left.For me the mountains are an escape from Japan. In Canada if you get wet clothing you have to suffer through it. That is why I have bought good gear. I don't have to suffer through drying out wet clothing. Hanging out in a lodge that you havn't paid for isn't what I like to do on a trip. I'll admit I have gone into a few huts to get out of the weather but I certainly don't feel comfortable doing it.Anyways Jer and Dan eventually came back to camp and we ate a great dinner while watching an amazing sunset. The sky turned bright red and I thought "Red sky at night, sailor's delight" might come through for us...Day 2 Around the same time as my feet started to freeze it also started raining. It got heavier and heavier as the night went on with the heaviest rain being just around sunrise which in this country happens way to early.The line we were going to ski was a run I've always wanted to get into. We would have had to ski under some large cornices so with the heavy rain that idea was quickly scrapped. We stayed in our tents till 8 when the rain stopped and when we emerged the tops of the mountains were covered in clouds. We had the idea that we'd pack up and move all our gear to the bus station where if we fealt like it we'd go for another run around there. A good idea except in the back of our heads we all probably wanted to get out.We left camp at 10 taking the rope tow up the first and longest slope. I was able to keep my skis on for almost the entire trip to Murodo station. Like all trips in the spring around Tateyama once you get to Murodo it's like you've just skied into Shinjuku station. There are so many people and they all look like they just came out from the first mornings meeting. Always entertaining.No surprise when we were all at the station at 11:00am we quickly packed it in and headed inside.A fun relaxed weekend in the mountains. 2 runs skied and I slept for 12 hours Saturday night. Even though we didn't ski anything Sunday I still didn't get home till mid afternoon.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
26th November 2005
After such a great 1st weekend skiing in the Tateyama area last week I had to have 1 more go of it before they foolishly close the road till the warmer temperatures of spring. Saturday - Nick wasn't able to join me however Dan very enthusiastically took his place. We met in Kamioka at the still dark hour of 6am and quickly made our way to Tateyama station. Geared up and on a bus as soon as possible we were on the snow hiking to our camp by 10am. The hotels were almost all closed as it is the end of the season and tenters were so bold as to camp right outside the bus station. Dan and I trudged a bit further than that though and ended up behind the large hotel overlooking some rather large cliffs. We decided to get our tent up right away and quickly dug into the massive snow drift already more than 3 metres tall. As this was Dan's first winter trip and he hasn't used a beacon yet we had to do some warmup drills before getting fully underway. But we got a short steep run in right before that dropping into an area I hadn't yet been. We had followed Tatsuo's tracks as he was again camped right next to us. They led us into a nice and steep short line that went between some cliffs. Good start to the day and I'll have to remember that line for next year. We made our way past the Raicho campsite crossed the river and quickly stamped out an area to practice our self rescue. I don't do this nearly enough and I had a good time playing around and looking for the hidden beacon. Really something that everybody should do more than a couple times a season. Close to an hour later and with frozen hands we both agreed that if anything happened I'd either die and Dan would steal my gear off of my frozen body or he'd rescue me and demand repayment of said rescue with new gear.But with Dan hopefully able to rescue me we set up Raicho in hopes for a good powder run down the standard route. I was a little weary about getting onto unskied areas as just a couple days before a 51 year old Japanese fellow was killed in an avalanche close to the Bus station. I didn't know too many details about the slide but didn't want a repeat of this tragic accident.As Dan doesn't have touring skis he was climbing Raicho on snowshoes. There was a well beaten path leading straight up the slope that he quickly got on. I on the other hand need to switchback in places and ended up cutting my own trail for most of the climb. People had been skinning up the steep track however I can't do that and so had to set about breaking my own trail. This is alright though and I was able to keep Dan in my sight most of the way. When I could use the skin track I would catch up quite a bit however on 2 steep switchbacks my skis slid out from me and I ended up in the snow unhappy and cold. I was making good progress though as on the next ridgline over I could see Tatsuo breaking trail straight up and I he wasn't making any ground on me. As we gained elevation the clouds would clear everyonce in a while and I could look down towards the campsite and see a line of BC skiers making their way up the slope. Not that there is anything wrong with it but I could also see them using my new and easier skin track. I would do the same thing had the skin track been in there but I wish that the previous skinners hadn't been so lazy and had put a better route in rather than following the snowshoers straight up the slope.I caught up to Dan near the top when he either stopped to wait for me or was just to tired to go on and we had a descision to make. We were on a narrow ridgline with either rocks above to go through or a steep slope to skin across. We were within about 20 or 30 metres vertical of the top hut. I didn't feel comfortable skinning around the rocks and wouldn't be able posthole. A fall in these rocks would not be good. Dan wouldn't be able to traverse the steep slope. Visibility was down to 10 metres or so and didn't look like it would improve so I called it and we quickly got ready for our ski down. Dan went first and made good tracks through the deep powder however he wished he had wax on his skis and or was using his new fatskis. I followed him down and we picked our way through the few tracks on the face finding fresh lines here and there until we were at the bottom. A really good run with about 600 or 700 metres of vert skied including the little run before.Back at the campsite we got our skins and shoes back on and made our way back to our camp. The first bit of slope always seperates the men from the boys. This is the same slope as the ski hill and although I always dread skinning up it it isn't that difficult and it's fun passing young people that are nearly having heart attacks. When I got to the top Dan was about 3/4 up. He had not brought enough food and was crashing hard. I couldn't help him as I didn't have any left on me. He knows the area so I set off towards camp on my own. What seemed like forever of up and down traversing on this hellish ridgline and I was back at camp.I quickly dug a hole next to the tent to put our feet and stove into and made some ramen and hot chocolate for Dan who would need food. He didn't show however and I started to get worried thinking that he had crashed and passed out somewhere or was delerious and wandering through the poison gas area. I was just about to set off looking for him when he showed up an hour after I left him. He had gone to the bus station to call Risa and have some food. His apology of 2 tall cans of beer was more than enough though. I got dinner going and with a half empty Hot Chocolate bottle filled it with JD making for a good toxic mixture.As there wasn't much going on we got into bed at my usual backcountry bedtime of 7:30.Sunday - The pressure dropped drastically around 4:00am signaling the arrival of a monster storm. We were on the lee side of a big building however the wind was still rattling the tent a bit and was blowing around quite a bit of snow. So much that the back wall of the tent up against Dan was almost completly filled with snow pushing Dan over about 15cms in his little tent. Without the snow the tent is only 100cm wide so with the decreased space from the extra snow it was getting a little stuffy. Dan who went to bed wearing all of his clothing including ski pants and jacket was able to easily get out of bed at 6:00am before the sun came up to shovel us out. I remained in the warmth of my bag a little longer than that but soon joined him in the blizzard outside. What to do was what we were asking ourselves. I walked around to the front of the buildingto relieve myself and was nearly blown over by the strong wind and had I been without goggles would have been blinded by the tiny snowflakes. We unamanously made the easy descision to bail out however I wanted a warm breakfast so we spent a bit of time digging a snow shelter into the drift behind the tent. While I tried to get my stove going Dan packed everything up. I gave up trying to light my stove as my lighter was empty and and my matches kept going out in the strong wind. It didn't help that the stove was constantly being covered in snow. I too packed up and we retreated to the bus station. It's kind of nice being so close to civilzation in this sort of situation. Crossing the plain back to the bus station was like being on a glacier in white out conditions. It would have been really easy to get turned around had I not known where I was going. When we got to the bus station we found nearly all the campers inside having bailed out themselves. We got into line hoping to get the first bus. That turned into a long wait as the road was too dangerous to drive on. We ended up waiting for 4 hours before it was clear enough and when we could go it was in a convoy of 7 full buses behind 2 giant snowplows. We finally got to Tateyama Station at 3:00pm. 6 hours after first stepping into Murodo Station.This trip was a really good experience and a fun time. It's too bad that it will be some months before I'm able to easily get back into this area.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
19th November 2005
Nearly 1 month after I thought I'd get my first turns of the season on Norikura I finally got to ski in the Tateyama area on the November 19/20 weekend.Nick came out from Kyoto Friday night sleeping at my place and we woke nice and early to a really cold apartment Saturday morning. Up and away I was happy to see that it was snowing lightly in Takayama. It was even sticking to the trees and road as we went over the pass above Nagareha ski hill. We arrived at the station at 7:30 and found it to be really busy. They were better organized than last year though and had the road clear of snow just a few minutes later. The terminal was packed with backcountry skiers and boarders. As there is construction on the top tram terminal we were fortunate to be able to take a bus straight to Morodo station saving both time and energy. I've said it before but I really hate having to take the little uphill train, trolly, tram thingy. We finally made it up to the station at 10. We were going to meet a guy that had contacted us about BC skiing. His name was Chris and he was coming up from the Nagano side. He wouldn't be up till 11:30 though. We thought we had lots of time so got ready and stepped outside. It was snowing lightly. We skinned over to the hotel easily enough only to find that it was still open. There were lots of campers around that had done the same thing. We had camped behind this hotel the year before. It saves having to descend all the way to Raicho-zawa camp. But that was what we were faced with now. In the spring it is easy to just ski down this valley getting to the tent area in about 5 or 10 minutes. Early winter is quite a bit different as we found out. One of the campers that also thought of putting his tent behind the lodge was the Landmade Big Mountain skier Tatsuo Hayashi out of Hakuba. We always run into him in this area. Nick and I set off with our big bags with Tatsuo just behind us. We soon found ourselves at the bottom faced with an open creek that meandered back and forth across the narrow valley. After a few sketchy snow bridges and good conversations with Tatsuo later we were getting close to the camp. However we found ourselves on the wrong side of the creek with nowhere to go. In front of us was a steep bank we couldn't go up with the creek right up against it. I tried traversing the bottom of it however the snow collapsed on me and I faceplanted with my big backpack. I couldn't move with the weight of my bag on top of me and my feet attached to the skis beneath me so Tatsuo had to unclick my bindings for me. A long process that was made even worse because I thought I might either punch through the snow to the water below or roll into the creek right next to me. But it all worked out and I had my skis back on and we were across. We only had one more crossing and we would be at camp. This crossing was easy enough however we had to go through a bit of wet snow and water which really messes up the base of your skis when the water freezes. Our bases were all balled up with snow and once we were at camp I had to set about scraping it off with my ice-axe and shovel blade. Getting to camp had taken over an hour and we were now late for meeting Chris who we tried calling numerous times with no luck. But we were at camp and it would take us about an hour to get back to the bus station. Faced with that dilema we started digging out our camp hoping Chris would find his own way to the camp area which he did after waiting for 30 minutes. He skied and shuffled the along the summer route which would have been much quicker than our creek hopping route. With our camps set up and a few hours left in the day we set out for a quick run. We were going to gain a ridge for a short run back to camp. It took a while skinning up as the face was steep and I had to break the trail but we were soon on the ridge watching a group of 5 ptarmigans walk around on the snow. A quick rest and a stability pit dug by Nick and we were off on our first run. As I broke trail all the way in I got first tracks. We went down a different way than we came up though and as I skied down realized that this wasn't exactly a good idea. Halfway down the slope was a cliff band. I stopped off to the side of it and radioed up to Nick telling him this and to tell Chris to come down to me which he did shortly. We then radioed Nick however he never turned up and we were both just starting to think he had went down another way when he finally came down after double ejecting from his new touring bindings. Strange. He stopped just above me and released a nice blocky slab which quickly broke into sluff. But it was a scary second or two watching everying around me break and slide away. We all met up at the bottom after that little scare and traversed to the creek to get a turn or two more. This was our second mistake of the run as we were too far down the valley and would have to walk back up the creek. It seemed easier at first until once again we were faced with a very steep cut slope with water right up against it. Nick wanted to climb up the hill to the flat terrace above however the water was only 10-15cms deep at it's deepest. As my boots are much more waterproof than regular ski boots I went first. I took off my skis on a large drift that went down to the water and immediatly fell through up to my armpits. Kind of like falling through a crevesse I guess. Climbing out and looking down we could see the undercut bank that I had fallen into. I safely got across the creek with no wet feet and then Nick and Chris threw their skis across to me and crossed themselves. No problems at all. We were soon back at camp thinking about all the mistakes we had made today and hoping that would be the last of our bad luck.The temperature quickly dropped as the light turned to dark and we set about melting snow for dinner and trying to stomach the whisky Nick had brought along. After dinner and while getting ready for bed one of the Japanese fellows right next to us gave us lots of very delicious sake that they were trying to get rid of. We didn't have a problem helping them out at all. I finally got into bed at 9:30 with the temperature outside the tent being -7Sunday - It got pretty cold in the early morning hours with the inside of the tent being -7. It would be much colder outside. But both Nick and I were warm in our bags. Nick had just bought a -25 down bag and was very toasty. While I was using my old down bag along with my overbag. With some extra layers on I was toasty. But we had to get up as there was fresh snow to be skied. We were able to cook our breakfast of Ramen while staying in our sleeping bags but soon we had to get out. It had warmed up a bit but was still well below zero. We packed up most of our gear and then finally set off for some runs at 8:30. We were going to ski a nice chute on the side of the Raicho face that didn't have any tracks in it. Saddly though a lone telemarker was putting in a skin track right up the narrow chute. The guy was kind of silly as there was a perfect skin track in the next chute over that would have left our run untracked. But that is life and he wanted to check out the run as he skinned up which wasn't exactly a bad thing either. Skins off at the top we got ready and Nick dropped in first. The snow was really dry. I went second and had a great run. Very fun. Chris only made it up about half way so he dropped in 3rd from a different spot and we all had big smiles at the bottom and were ready for another run.Nick wanted a steep chute however I fealt that getting into it would be very difficult. So in usual Matt form I voted on my line and forced us into doing that. It did give us something to bicker about most of the way up as everytime we stopped to catch our breath we could look over and see the nice looking line. I broke trail most of the way up however to save the slope we had to get onto a ridge where the snow was just over top of shrubs and sasa. Each step the snow would collapse making trail breaking difficult. But I lasted a ways on this before letting Nick take over for the final 4 or 5 switchbacks. As we were climbing up for our 2nd run we also saw that a group of 5 were getting into the steep run that Nick wanted to ski. They would have beaten us in there anyways and it turned out that getting to the top of the run wasn't very difficult for them at all. But we had our run to think about which was a nice wide powder field going at a good angle right to the valley bottom. All geared up Nick beat me on the Janken for first tracks but I beat Chris so got to go second which was nice. The second run's snow wasn't as dry as the first but it was a great run none the less.After that run our bodies had had enough and we went back to camp to pack up and head out. Just as we got back the sky opened and all of a sudden we could see the entire Tateyama peak. There were tracks all over it but most of them would have been put in while the clouds were thick. We were a little jealous of people that were up there but it would have been a gamble and we chose visibility over peak bagging. I've stood on the summit of Tateyama 4 times now (3 of them with skis) and Nick twice. It would have been a great run though.Packs on we had to make the slog back up the hill to the bus station. It wasn't as bad as we made it out to be and we were on the top of the steepest part in 15 minutes. From there it was just an annoying up, down, left and right traverse back. We said goodbye to Chris had got onto the first bus we could. I had to sit on the front stair though as they had let just 1 extra person on. But it was a nice if not a bit uncomfortable front row seat for the 90 minute ride.We all had a good time out and it was great to get the first turns of the season in on such soft and dry snow.
Backcountry Skiing – Tateyama – Tsurugi Area
23rd July 2005
Last week while hiking past Tsurugidake I found many of the couloirs to still be filled with continous snow. Could I actually ski in July?I decided to find out and set into motion a plan of mid-summer skiing in the North Alps of Japan. I would do a 2 day trip going super light. No bivi sack. Just a light sleeping bag and stove. Why I decided to not bring my bivi sack is a mystery to me. It only weighs about 1 kg. I was carrying my steel crampons. Those alone weigh 1-2kg. But off I went with only a light sleeping bag for my nights sleep. The weather report late Friday night for Toyama was sun. Early Saturday morning in Toyama it was cloud to sun. Getting up to Murodo at 8:00am I found everything to be wet. Looking at my keitei forcast I found that the weather was now cloud to rain. I was screwed. I had spent more than 4000yen getting up into the mountains on the promise of fine weather only to find that once up there it had changed. I didn't want to ski my couloir in bad weather. What if under zero visability I skied into an open crevasse. Not safe. So I unpacked my bag putting everything I didn't need into a locker. I was going to go for a few safer runs in the area of Tsurugi but not on Tsurugi. If the weather cleared I could still camp. So with a much lighter pack with skis attached I made my way up the hill to the saddle. I climbed on snow for most of the way before finding the trail to the saddle and it's hut. A quick water break and I was on my way to a little summit nearby. I knew from the previous week that there was a snow line that went right off the ridge all the way to the camping area in Tsurugizawa. A good long break hoping for the weather to clear found me just waiting longer. So I got ready and decided to ski the line close to the rocks on the side hoping hoping for a little definition on the slope. Visibility was very bad but it was really nice to be back on the skis. The slope was steep and soon I was out of the clouds skiing down to the flats below. A fun run. A quick rest and I booted up to a different area for another run. Climbing up I saw a nice skinny finger of snow. I climbed into it and once at the top got ready for run number 2. Skis back on I made some fun turns on the skinny line. The snow was nice and smooth. Out onto the broad slope the snow changed and I was again fighting for turns. It was skiing though. I just had to keep that in my mind. I skied out to the campsite where I had a nice long break sitting on a large rock. The weather would open up a bit and then close but Tsurugi always remained in the clouds. I hiked back up to the hut above me and after a nice rest there saw a really nice short steep line nearby. I hiked out to it and at the top got ready again and was on the snow. It was really steep. More than 45 degrees and ended suddenly on a scree slope. Very nice. Too bad it was short. Back at the bottom and skis back on my backpack I went back to the hut but not before getting stuck behind a large group of about 20 older ladies. They were all amazed that I had skis on my back and wondered if I was skiing. Seems like a stupid question but I guess it is late July. Back at the hut and another rest it was getting into the afternoon so I thought I had best get back to the bus station. I had to hike down the slope for a bit before my snow line started. This line twisted and turned all the way down to Raichozawa where I had a really good break and watched the many people. On a tiny little snow patch nearby there were about 10 skiers race training. They were decked out in the best gear even wearing downhill suits. Odd thing was they couldn't ski worth crap. They were falling down and snowplowing through the course set up. I had to chuckle at that one. Skis again on my back I made my way back to the bus station where my new keitei forcast called for cloud. Although it didn't rain I wouldn't have been able to ski my line. I was happy to have made the a good decision about leaving my overnight gear at Murodo and skiing safe lines. Sad about making the previous bad decision about leaving my bivisack at home. Oh well. A good day out and the snow left me thinking that it is indeed summer and skiing is now finished. I'll just have to wait to ski Tsurugi until next summer.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
7th June 2005
With my school immersed in Mid-Term Exams I found myself with 4 days of work free work. Looking at the weather however I was only promised 1 day of good condition. That 1 day was Tuesday so I took a vacation day bought some food and went to bed very early Monday night3:30 - My alarm goes off however I'm deeply asleep dreaming of steep lines and powder days3:40 - My alarm goes off and I actually wake up and jump out of bed. A quick shower and I'm off killing what I hope to be the 4th and last cockroach that was looking through my pile of gear next to the door. The nice thing about traveling early in the morning is that roads are deserted except for a few lunatic truck drivers. They are usually nice and pull over to let you pass although some arn't and you are forced to drive at an insanely low speed waiting for a straight section of road which in Japan can be kilometres upon kilometres away. But I made it to Tateyama station just before 6. I thought the first tram was at 6:40 but turns out that is only for busy times. The first wasn't till 7:00 so I passed the time watching the few people that were out vacationing on this early weekday morning. No-doubt they were curiously watching me as well. 7:00 came around and I boarded the tram with just a few people. Getting to the top 10 minutes later I was informed that the first bus wouldn't be till 7:40. I was not happy. I'll have to plan this better next time.I was finally on the snow at 8:30 skinning towards my objective. I was going to attempt my dream line. This is a hairy line that I spotted while skiing with Sandy and Nick over Golden Week 1 month before. We had many discussions about whether or not it was in fact skiable. From the camp area it looks very steep and constricts down in a very narrow section before making an S shaped curve to the exit. I traversed all the way around the bowl trying not to loose any elevation and was soon at the bottom of my line. My skis came off, crampons, helmet and ice-axe came out and I started front pointing up the slope. From the bottom of the couloir I couldn't see very far because of the S-curve. I wouldn't know if the line was skiable until I was actually faced with the crux. I quickly made it through the S-curve and was next faced with the crux of the couloir which was the skinny. I was excited to find that it was very skiable and at it's narrowest was about 2-3 metres wide. More than enough to get through. I front pointed up gaining elevation quickly. After the skinny section I was then faced with the steepest part. An off fall line section that was close to 50 degrees. This was the most interesting part of the ascent as it's the steepest snow I have ever climbed. The snow was firm though and I practically ran up it with the aide of my crampons, ice-axe and adrenaline that was flowing. I was soon past the difficulties with the rest of the couloir relaxing to an easy 40 degrees. I arrived on the ridge at 10:30 and had to have a break to let my heart slow down and body dry off as I was sweating like a pig. I scrambled up to the highest bump for the nice view. Nothing new however as I've been in this area so many times now. A quick break and I had to start my descent. I didn't want the snow to become too soft. Clicking in I made some fun turns down the first easy section. The 2nd half of the couloir was the good part and it didn't dissapoint. The steep off-falline section was really fun with nice corn and then I was into the tight 2-3 metre section. As the walls are very steep the sun doesn't get onto this line for more than an hour or 2 a day. The fresh snow from the weekend was still very soft and I witnessed my first high speed wet snow slide. I can't really say it was high speed though. Just fast. Usually the wet sluffs and slides that I see are very slow moving however with the angle of this couloir they sped up quickly. I just moved off to the side to let it run it's course before following it down. It wasn't really dangerous as it was just surface sluff but it was definitly interesting. I had to make tight turns which was lots of fun. Soon the tight section was passed though and I was making the last few turns through the S-curve before being spit out onto the open face below. An amazing run and a step up in my ascending/descending backcountry skiing experience. The day wasn't finished though and after a nice long break I traversed all the way back across the bowl. I was going to ski off a small subpeak that was somewhere in the range of 2700-2800 metres tall. on route I noticed at the bottom of the run there was a really narrow line. It looked to be maybe 50 cm's wide, steep and about 30 metres long. I would have to ski it. The bump I was now aiming for would let me open it up with big turns as the last run only let me make small turns. After another long break on the top I once again clicked into my skis and skied the face. It was really nice and pretty steep. I found the entrance to my little line only to find that I had been tricked and it was a bit wider than it had appeared from below. Maybe 2 metres wide. Wanting to see if I could get my 185cm skis around on the 200cm wide line I attempted 2 or 3 turns before letting it go and lining it to the end. Really fun. On a weekend I would have taken about 10 people out on the exit but as this was a weekday there were only 2 hikers and they didn't even notice. As I had planned this last run to give me an easy exit I pointed my skis across the slope and easily traversed back to the station. An end to a great day out having bagged a line that was bugging me to be skied.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
4th June 2005
Pursuing the endless season I set my eyes on Tateyama once again. Along for the ride were Dan, Bill and Chris. Dan would be skiing with me and Bill and Chris would be hiking.SaturdayWe left early Saturday and surprisingly arrived at an empty Tateyama station. Maybe the Japanese knew something we didn't. I was expecting thunder and lightening for Saturday night but it was still early Saturday morning. We got up to the top to high gray skies with the ceiling being just below 3000 metres. We quickly made it to the campsite and set it all up. Dan bought a new tent so we were both in that. It was a very nice Mont Bell 4 season tent. Just as we set up camp it started to rain so we made our way over to the onsen for an early beer. The weather was interesting with very heavy hail, rain and thunder and lightning. An hour of bull shitting later and it quickly cleared up to patchy clouds. We got geared up and started our way up the Raicho-zawa face. Dan and I were going to ski the Bikini line while Bill and Chris were going to make it up to the 2800 metre sub-peak on the ridge. About 30 minutes into the skin the weather moved in with very evil looking clouds coming in off the ocean. As Bill and Chris were hiking if the weather turned bad they would have to walk back taking a long time. They bailed back to camp with Dan and I continuing on. Further up the face a few rain drops fell. I contemplated turning back as well but after shouting across to Dan descided to keep going to the top. I was kind of worried being on the ridge with my skis attached to my back and the lightning we had heard before and would come again in the future. But I kept going and we made it to the top in a very fast hour. The weather had completly moved in though and while it wasn't raining visability was very bad. We rested inside the top hut for a while before desciding to go. We made out way up the ridge and over to the start of our line. Nick, Sandy and I had skied this run 1 month before during Golden Week. It hadn't changed very much at all other than being a bit skinnier. We quickly made our way down making nice small turns. It was fun as Dan was just a few turns behind me the entire way as the visability was so poor. He had no idea the run was so skinny as we couldn't see anything. Nice and steep. Making our way back to camp we found Chris and Bill moping around. They had started building a wall and at first didn't find it fun at all but soon realized that the only other option was sitting on the wet snow. Soon we had a really nice cooking area complete with a nice bench for all of us to sit. While we were building up our camp Dan had gone for another run into the same area as Nick and I always ski. He had taken my skis along. For the descent though he forgot to lock down the heals and had a good tumble at the top. Would have been funny to see. It was soon dinner time and after the first pot of water was cooked it started to lightly drizzle so with onsen stuff and all our food we again made our way to the shelter of the hut. A nice covered dinner and then it was time for the onsen. A great way to end the day. We went to bed to the sound of rain which in the early evening hours sounded pretty heavy.SundayThe temperatures dropped in the night and soon we all had cold feet. 4:30 came around and I had had enough so I got up as it was already light out anyways. We could see the mountains although the tops were still covered in cloud. After a good breakfast though the clouds suddenly vanished and the temperatures quickly rose. We packed everything up and at 7 started the walk/skin out. We were going to leave our heavy bags at the top of the plateau to retrieve on our way back after our summit attempt. The snow down low was still soft from the rain the day before however the higher we went the harder it got. Very good for skinning. We quickly made it to the base of the ridge and after a quick rest started up. I was a ways back after having to fiddle with my skis for a bit but that gave me something to work for. About 2/3 of the way up I saw Dan quickly making his way back down. He had forgotten his poles at the hut. Sucks for him. Bill and Chris were still ahead though and we would wait for him at the top. Bill and Chris made it up in a very speedy 45 minutes. Could have been 40 but they were taking pictures just below the hut. I made it in 50 and Dan summited in a very quick 80 minutes after having hiked most of it twice. The weather was amazing. We were above the clouds and the sky was an amazing blue. After many many summit pictures we descided to get going. I was going to ski the same face Nick and I had skied back in April while Dan was going to ski the chute Nick, Sandy and I had skied in Golden Week. Both would be good runs. The chute would be fun for steep tight turns while my face would be good for steep fast wide open turns. I went first and had a blast. It was amazing. The corn had softened just right. I was able to get second tracks down the face in the new hail that had fallen the night before. Looking up at my line was really nice seeing the big turns that I had made coming down. At the bottom I traversed out and was so pumped up that I took my skis off and booted up a different steep chute getting about 200 extra metres. It was really nice making some fast turns back to our bags. I could see Dan's line now as well. Very nice. Even as we were leaving on the bus his were the only fresh tracks in it. Bill and Chris quickly made there way down and we could here them having fun sliding on a few plastic bags. We made our way back to the station and our trip was over. A great 2 days in the mountains even if 1 of them was a little wet.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
29th April 2005
Tateyama Golden Week Backcountry SkiingDay 1The day finally arrived and we (Sandy, Nick and Myself) departed to Tateyama for our Golden Week Vacation. Driving out to the station we were hit with heavy rain coming from Typoon number 3. Although it didn't making landfall number 3 still pushed some rain into our area. We stopped at a combini to buy some last minute stuff which included garbage bags and more liqueur. We managed to cram all the food into our bags and hoisting them on our shoulders walked to the station. After a few photo ops with Chinease Tourists we made it inside the station to find it virtually deserted. The weather was keeping a lot of people away but we were too fired up to notice. Getting up to Murodo Station we were greated with a cold, damp and packed building. While changing into his longjohns Nick was spanked by a female Chinease Tourist who was far to excited to watch him change. After shivering for a bit inside the building we made the descision to get moving and made our way outside. Sandy and Nick were both sporting garbage bag jackets to fend off the rain. Sandy had tried to make a poncho however it quickly became a half shirt it the strong wind. We made our way to camp in the thick clouds with visibility of only a couple metres. If we hadn't known the way it would have been very easy to get turned around and very lost. We found the campsite and picked a spot to dig in. Nick and I were both surprised that our wall from the weekend before had been reduced to an unnoticable bump. It was raining really hard but we had to dig a wall to protect the tents. We dug a monster wall out of the easily carvable snow and set up the tents as quickly as possible. Sandy and I were in the small 2 man tent and Nick was in the larger "4" man tent. We were all pretty wet although Nick seemed to be the wettest. It didn't help that his tent was already soaked right through. We all crammed into his tent and as there was really nothing to do popped the lid on the JD, Sandy's homemade liquer and played some drinking games. Sandy and Nick didn't fare to well and pretty much polished the bottles off themselves. There was another gaijin in the tent area so in a brief lull in the rain we invited him over opened up the Umechu and pretty much finished that off as well. The 4th person in the tent was an American named Brandon and was going to climb Tsurugi the next day. Sandy tried to teach us a card game however we wern't interested at all and in what seemed to be the end of the storm emerged from the tent to find that our monster wall had been reduced to tatters. Our beautiful blocks looked like an old shirt filled with holes. We quickly found that in the spring a simple wall would not do. We would have to build a fortress. So once again we set out to build walls. This time making them huge with bases of 2 metres. We were pretty much ready for anything now. We cooked an early dinner and quickly got into bed to a clearing sky. Day 2With Typoon number 3 past we awoke to a bright blue sky and really nice frozen snow. We tried to gear up quickly however wet gear slowed us down. As usual our good friend the big mountain skier left camp about half an hour before us. That is the 3rd time we have seen him in this area. Rubbing elbows with the stars.We set out to ski a 2872 metre peak that Nick and I had spotted the week before. It had a cool line off the summit. I was able to skin directly up the steep icy snow which in winter would have had me floundering. I set a good pace for myself and arrived near the hut in the saddle in just over an hour. Knocking 30 minutes off of the previous weeks time. Nick and Sandy arrived shortly after and attaching skis to bags we set off. I again set a good pace and made it to the snow covered bump first passing a group of snowboarders who were heading to the same line as we were. Not wanting to get 2nd tracks I found an easy way up to the 2872 metre summit. There were 2 entries onto the face. The first involved dropping onto a 50 degree face. The 2nd although not as steep was a line which was skiable off of the summit. I like skiing off of summits so chose the 2nd line. As I was ready to go I jumped in and found execellent snow. The line was steep and the snow fast. It fealt great. Sandy jumped in on the steeper line next and skied it pretty good seeing as it was his first time skiing steep spring snow. Nick ripped it as usual. We still wanted more so made another couple turns to the bottom of the bowl getting cheers from some other skiers who had been watching. Not wanting the day to end we skinned back to the saddle for a rest before attaching skis to backpacks for the slog to the summit. It wasn't icy like the week before however that made it seem worse as there wasn't anything to concentrate on. It was now a muddy grunt of a climb. I was determined to get some excersise out of it though and pushed myself making it to the top faster than the week before. Nick arrived a few mintutes later with Sandy coming up 3rd crashing a bit from our previous exlpoits. While resting up we watched a few people ski our line from last week. Although the powder was nice last week the corn looked so nice on this face. We talked about different lines we wanted to ski with a Slovanian Guide who was leading a Japanese group. He was telling us of an amazing line off of the summit of Tsurugi which never gets skied. I wouldn't mind hiring a guide next year for that line. Fully rested we made our way into our chute. We were going to ski the chute facing the Murodo Bus station. A good 40-45 degree chute descending to the plain below. Nick went first and ripped it all the way to the bottom. I went second and had a really good run. Sandy also ripped it the bottom. We were all really pumped up about the cool line. Now on the open face we all made GS turns in the very soft snow over to the different line I wanted to hit. I had scouted it on the skin up and it was basically a short cliff band that had a been filled in with snow. My run was fun doing jump turns inbetween to cliffs. Sandy straighlined a cool very steep chute and Nick jumped off of the cornice. A great way to end the ski day.We skied back to camp and as it was only 2ish dried everything out in the afternoon sun and continued to build our walls. After dinner we wandered over to the onsen. A great way to finish up an amazing day. Day 3Nick and Sandy spotted a cool line that looked like a Bikini top. It was a narrow chute that would drop us right back at camp.We set out much earlier up the face towards Tsurugi. I was very dehydrated so that kept me back with the other two but we still made it up to the hut in good time. The weather was hazy with clouds coming in so at the top I got a weather report which didn't look good. 70 percent chance of rain. We were going to do some laps in the bowl below Tsurugi however we wanted to get back to camp to secure some stuff if the rain hit early. We made the right descision though as the chute was in perfect form. We all skied it great with Nick cutting a line right between the boobs of the bikini. Back at camp we secured the tents and after a short break started skinning up the same run we have done each time we come to this area. With darkening clouds rolling in we started our run. It was amazing with high speed turns down the steep open face. Of the 3 times Nick and I have skied this face this was by far the best. Each time we have also started from a little higher up. Back at camp we opened up our celebratory stashed in the snow beers and drank happily for the 2 great runs.We knew the rain was coming so we went to work fortifying our wall even more. The wind was coming from the opposite direction as before so we had to build up the walls higher and thicker. Around 3 the rain started and we retreated to the tents. Nick went to the onsen to buy more liqueur while Sandy the lazy guy that he is went to sleep. I was just bored. The rain didn't really seem to be stopping so we had to cook in Nick's tent. This was a first for me and I was amazed how hot it got in there. We were going to have an onsen after dinner however the rain just kept getting heavier and heavier. So we called it an early night and went to bed. Day 4The rain just got heavier and heavier all night. Sandy and I were lucky in that we stayed very dry though. Outside the rain was carving deep crevasses in the snow where it poured off the fly. Of all the nights I have spent in the backcountry this was by far the worst rain I have experienced. It was very demoralising. With the sun rising or in our case black turning to grey I got another weather report. It told of more rain in the day. We made the descision to bail on our trip. Sandy and I cleaned up our tent and as it was still dry invited Nick over for a feast of our extra food. We ate an amazing amount of food but still had a ton left. The rain soon let up and we saddly packed up all our gear. We all skied over to the rope tow for the ride out of the bowl. When we got the top of the rope tow the sun came out and the peaks started to emerge. If we went back to camp we could have dried out all our gear but skiing would have been to dangerous. We would have had to wait another day. So we continued on back to the bus station. An end to a pretty good ski trip cut short due to weather.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
23rd April 2005
Day 1After skiing in the Tateyama area last November with Nick we saw the potential of the area and made plans to get back there when it re-opened in April.April 23 rolled around and we made it up to Tateyama station pulling into one of the last remaining parking spots. We geared up and went into the station only to find it packed with tourists. We got a number and unlike November where we were waiting due to weather we were now waiting because of crowds. But an hour later we were boarding the train to the bus station above where we quickly got on a bus. The snow slowly got deeper and deeper until just before Murodo Station we passed one wall which was nearly 20 metres tall.We got ready and then skied down to the camp in really difficult flat light and amazingly fresh powder. I havn't skied a real run with a huge backpack in a long time though. It proved to still be really difficult. Wanting to get some vert we ditched the bags and started skinning up the face which leads towards towards Tsurugidake. A switchback up the skin track I had to pull over as my pinky toe was digging into it's neighbor and was hurting pretty good. Nick got ahead of me and gave me drive to catch up to him. I pretty much broke my own trail up the steep hill as my skins don't like the smooth skin tracks. The snow was really good for skinning though and I was able to climb fairly steeply. The clouds would break every so often and we could catch glimpses of some skiers dropping into a roudy line. Later we found out that it was a guided trip and was being led by the nice guide we had met in November. We soon caught up with a large group skinning up and they had decided to bypass a large ice bulge by booting straight up. We chose to follow. It was fairly straightforward at first however soon we had to cross the ice bulge. They had kicked steps in however the ice was really hard and they were only able to kick steps enough for toes to hold. So we had a nervous boot to the ridge line where we were stopped in a traffic jam as the leader couldn't tell where to go in the thick clouds. While stopped we spotted a Ptarmigan just a few metres away standing on the ridge. Probably waiting for us to go so it could continue on it's way. The weather cleared for a moment and we went on our way up to the hut which stood above 2800 metres. The wind was really blowing and it was cold so we wolfed down our lunch before gearing up for the descent. Our plan was to leave before the large group but just as we were starting to walk to our run they seemed to get in front of us. We managed to skirt them however we all got stopped pretty quick as it was a total white out. It cleared after a few minutes however and we were able to see a rock a ways down the run. We skied as quickly as we could to the rock before again having to stop and wait for the weather to clear a bit. We soon dropped below the clouds however and had a pretty good powdery run back to camp. A good 500-600 metres of vertical. We found a good place to set up camp and as it was still early decided to make the mother of all snow walls. It eventually turned out to be a fortress with walls taller than the tent but it gave us something to do. Setting up the tent Nick secured a corner with his probe pushing it's 3 metres into the snow without touching the ground. Judging by the water/bathroom hut it appeared that there was about 4 metres of snow as our feet were the same height as the roof. There was some discussion after setting up camp about trying the same line we skied in November. It looked really nice. So we set out around 3:30. I set the main skin track and as I was aiming for a high group of bushed tried to make it as steep as possible. Like the earlier run the snow was really good for skinning and we quickly made it to the bush area. This was where Nick and I had decided to starting booting up last year. Nick took over on the skin track and put in 2 more nice steep switchbacks before we decided it was too steep and started booting up. I was ready first so set off up the slope. The snow was really good for hiking and I was able to make really good steps all the way to the top of the chute. We doubled what we were able to ski in November. As I had done most of the work getting up Nick gave me first racks so as soon as the weather cleared enough I set off. The snow was really nice and I made some fun although very defensive turns until I had to stop because I was sinking into the crust. Nick came down after and with his fatter skis was able to go all the way to the bottom. We met back at camp and after organising everything started dinner. Nothing tastes better than spagetti and meat sauce after a hard day in the mountains. Nick had brought a ham along and it tasted really good. That and the JD I had brought put a little fire in our full bellies. As the sun went down the already cool temperature dropped with it so we retired to the "4" man tent at the early hour of 7. Turns out the "4" man tent only fits 2.Day 2During the night the clouds cleared away and the temperature dropped sharply. I was pretty toasty and sleeping soundly however Nick wasn't as comfortable. I've been there many times before. We both didn't think it would get that cold in late April. The inside of the tent went below -5. Going out for a very early morning pee break we both saw that amazing mountain we were going to attempt once the sun rose. There were quite a few ski lines off the long ridge however one stood out from all the rest. It was an amazing line coming directly off the summit. I could even spot it in the evening glow from the moon.Once the sun came up I was happily out of the tent making noise. I found a great way to heat up the ski boots. I filled my water bottles with boiling water and then stuck them in my boots. A few minutes of this and they were toasty. We had a really slow morning and I jokingly said let's try and be out by 8:30. Turned out that we left camp at that time. Just before we left 2 skiers skinned away. 1 of them said to us in english "Do you remember me?" It was one of the big-mountain guys that was skiing in November. We were in with the hardcores. They were going for the same line as us however instead of hiking all the way around and up the ridge like we were going to do they skinned directly up the steep bowl. We left camp and soon broke off from the skin track and cut right across the slope. In hindsite it probably wasn't the best route but things were pretty solid and nothing was coming down. I was able to lay in a nice steep skin track and we gained elevation on our way towards the saddle. Cutting across a steep slope I started sliding on an ice bulge. For me getting across was easy. I just locked down my heals and traversed across. Nick had to take his skis off and boot up. Not the easiest thing to do. On the other side of the ice bulge I continued up to the hut in the saddle soon joining with the hundred or so people walking/skinning up from the bus station. Nick came up a few minutes later and we had a break before contemplating the steep ridge walk ahead. We met a couple Japanese people who regualarly vacation in Canada. They said that they go Heli-skiing 1 or 2 times a year. I can only imagine how much that would cost. Funny thing about the really outdoorsy people in Japan is that almost all of them are filthy rich while most really outdoorsy people in western countries have fairly menial jobs with flexible scedules.But after securing our skis to our bags we started up the icy trail. In the summer I had made a bet with Dan on our 7 day traverse that I could get down this section of trail in 15 minutes. It took me 20 but it was a really fun run down a steep, busy, loose and dusty trail. Now it was icy and solid and instead of being a walk in the park was almost a full scramble with hands needed some of the times. I found it easier than the icy walk the day before as the ice was a little softer and easier to step up but care was needed as a slip would send you for a rake into pointy rocks. We were almost the only ones going up without crampons and Nick said a few times he wish he hadn't left his in the car. I didn't mind so much. But going up we both started contemplainting different routes down. We didn't know how we would be able to get onto our chosen route. There was a nice chute descending down from the main hut at the summit that looked very appealing. We would just have to bypass a few small ice bulges. We slowly made it to the top in the same hour as it says on the map which was pretty good. And after a nice snack in the sun complete with the name that peak game I wondered off to find our route down the mountain. Looking over a cliff I spotted our line and was nearly ecstatic. It was an amazing steep view down the 700 metres to our camp. There were only a few tracks in it as well. I quickly got Nick over to look and we saw the entrance which only involed a little side slipping on some ice. I went first and bypassed the main section following the other tracks. The main face looked icy and I was going to check it out for Nick from the bottom. My route was just as steep and icy though and Nick could hear my edges trying to gain purchase the entire way down. It was a good descent though down to the top of the bowl. I radioed to Nick to start and got my camera ready. He made it look good although I could hear his edges scraping pretty loudly. The powder started just below me and Nick went first letting it really fly. He yelled back to me on the radio to giver and I did. I really tried to get some fun GS style turns on the Shuksans. What an amazing feeling to be skiing nice powder at the very end of April. We finished up the line and made our way back to camp. An amazing run and I think my best ever big mountain line. Back at camp we repacked out bags before skiing over to the rope tow for the short drag to the top of the hill. This rope tow is only open from late April to late June and other than hauling tenters up the hill with there large bags doesn't really seem worth while as a ski hill. But as we were tenters and had very large bags we took full advantage of it. At the top I was able to release my heel and skin without skins all the way back to the bus station. I love my bindings so much. The temperature had regained it's spring time hold and it was amazingly hot. I had to again resort to skinning in shorts. A good feeling.What an amazing trip. So much fun. We skied 3 nice lines and had some good late season powder.I can't wait for Golden Week when Nick, Sandy and I are going into this area for 6 days. Will be an amazing experience.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
27th November 2004
I had been into the Tateyama area 2 times before but they had been in August with Dan for the start of our week long hike and then September by myself to climb Tsurugidake. I have always been amazed at the mountains and wanted to come back in the Spring to ski some of the steep lines.Nick Kowal from Kyoto wanted get some early skiing in however and soon a plan was being hatched to get some early season turns before the Tateyama Alpine route closed at the end of November.Watching web cams and the weather Nick and I planned on the last weekend in November. We would take the bus up from Tateyama Station and camp up high and look for skiable snow Saturday and Sunday. I have always been an optimistic person and was expecting a good time but I didn't think there would be much snow. I thought we would really have to look for it. Nick drove out from Kyoto friday night and arrived at my place just after midnight and we left what seems like minutes later early Saturday morning. I was really surprised when we got there to see many skiers and snowboarders. Many of the skiers were also sporting really big skis. We quickly geared up and with huge over night bags bordering on insanely heavy we hobbled into the station. To our surprise everybody was sitting around going nowhere. The top was closed as they were experiencing extreme winds and heavy snow. Daytrippers were going home and overnighters like us were settling in for a long rest. We passed the time talking to a group of Japanese skiers who were on a guided trip. The guide lived in Hakuba and spoke pretty good english. The skiers were all on huge skis like B3's, Apache Chiefs and Pocket Rockets. They said there was about a metre base and with the new snow it would be pretty good up there. If they let us up that is. I think the huge skis where a bit over kill though.Finally after nearly 5 hours of waiting we were able to board the tram followed by the bus and arrived in the alpine sometime after 2:00 PM. Not really wanting to camp down in the true camping area we followed many overnighters behind a huge hut and dug in out of the wind. Where we camped there was probably 10 tents. We quickly set up and set out for 1 run. Skinning up we aimed for a nice gully just below the cloudline. It was a great run in about 10 cm's of nice dry powder.We got back to our tents just as it was getting dark and settled in for dinner. As it was too cold to just stand around outside we got in the tent. For the first 6 or 7 hours it was quite pleasent in the tent and we had to open up the door to the vestibule to get some fresh air however the temps dropped as the night went on and in the morning is was quite a bit colder. In the tent it was just below zero. Sunday Nov 28 - Up early we couldn't see more than 10 metres but we got up and had breakfast. A white ptarmigan passed just near the limit of our vision probably looking for scraps from campers like us. Slowly the clouds parted revealing blue sky here and there however the clouds never did rise above the 2700-2800 metre level. We packed up and took our bags back to the bus station and then set out to find some fresh tracks. We aimed for the tent area hoping to find some lower skiing below the clouds. Skiing along a narrow ridge we spotted a nice short line dropping into a bowl. We deskinned and I got first tracks. It was beautiful snow. Very light over a really nice and soft base. I was even more surprised at how well my skis cut it up. I'm really happy with them. Nick came down after me loving it just as much as I was. Nick also spotted a white weazel running between the rocks. Not even 5 minutes after we had went down this line 2 or 3 people had already followed us. We skated out of the bowl and were placed at the top of our second line which was about twice as long as the first. Nick got first tracks for this one while I took pictures from the top. I was just getting ready to ski it and a Japanese fellow who had followed us down the last run jumped in front of me and poached my line. Not very good backcountry ethics at all. But all I had to do was traverse over 10 metres or so and I got a great line down to where Nick was standing. We got ready for our 3rd run and skinned towards an interesting gully. It was about 40-45 degrees and we had to boot pack up most of it. But for the parts that I was leading the booting was easy on firm snow. It wasn't that way for Nick. About half way up we decided it was far enough and shoveled out a platform for a rest before skiing down. I had been packing 2 tall cans of beer so we finished off 1 of them had a snack and then got ready to ski the line. Nick went first and had a great run while I took pictures from above. He waited at the bottom and then it was my turn. In the centre of the gully the snow was probably 10-20cm's deep. It was so nice.Our 4th run was a nice untracked bowl above the tent area which consisted of the same beautiful powder.Realizing that even though it would be cool to stay another day we had to get back to the bus station for the ride out.What a trip.Great skiing in the early season. We are already making plans to come back in early April when the route opens up again to ski some of the more roudy lines we couldn't see.
24th June 2006
My time in Japan is winding down and it looks like every weekend an activity has been slotted in. As the snow is getting more and more difficult to ski I decided to pick the June 24/25 weekend as my last ski weekend of the 2005/2006 season. It would also be my last ski trip in Japan for a long long time. I had to go out with a bang so picked a line that would really challenge me physically.The last big grunt of a trip that I did was Hakuba Yari. A big trip like that always leaves a person feeling like they have really completed something. The little trips that I do are also fun but a trip where at the end you are physically and mentally drained you know that it was a really good experience.Day ISo I set a big route for the last ski weekend. We would ski a big couloir on Tsurugidake. The elevation we had to gain for the day would be quite considerable but the terrain would be new and exciting. Dan and Jeremy were up for the challenge so we met early enough at Tateyama Train Station. We planned the timing correctly and were on the snow at 9:30. I told Dan and Jer that I'd like to have our tents set up in Tsurugizawa by 11:00 and be on our way to ski our line. We went our ways as I tried to skin up the Raicho face while they were walking. I made pretty good time to the top although it really drained me because I was sometimes fighting the snow trying to keep my skis from sliding out on me while traversing. It only took 2 or 3 times of having to pick myself off the snow before I said screw it and attached my skis to my backpack and made my way over to the exposed summer trail. I made up lots of time here and was quickly at the top hut. I didn't waste any time getting ready and in only a few minutes was making fun turns down into the bowl below to Tsurugizawa.I found a nice place to put my tent and started digging a platform out of the snow. It was difficult digging but after a little effort I had a platform big enough. Every few minutes I would look up to top of the bowl to see if Dan and Jer were on there way down. But they never showed. 11:00am passed and I had my tent set up and was trying to rehydrate myself as I hadn't drank very much water up until now. Sometime after 11:30 I saw Dan and Jer finally walking up the ridge. This kind of upset me as they were wasting time trying to get a few extra meters of vertical. They finally decided to ski down but stopped a few turns in to take pictures which really had me fuming. When they skied over to where I had camp set up they asked if I was upset to which they already knew the answer. I hassled them enough and set a new time to leave of 12:30. We never could have gotten ready for 11:00am but we could have been ready to go with our camps all set up for when we returned by 12:00.They quickly got ready and we were finally off on our run. We had to ski all the way down to the end of the valley where we would start climbing up the broad couloir. We skied about 500 meters vertical to the bottom of the run. The turns going down the broad valley were pretty good and it was fun looking up all the couloirs that we passed by. Tsurugi is a large and very steep mountain. The ridges that spill off the mountain are very steep and hold dozens if not hundreds of small sub couloirs that feed into the larger couloirs.The snow turned shitty just before we got to the base of our line but it didn't matter because we didn't have to go any lower.Looking up the couloir we saw snow right to the rigdeline way above. We instantly decided to ski that line even though there would probably be many other lines once we gained a little elevation in the large couloir.I shouldered my now very light bag with skis attached and started making my way up the couloir. I set a turn around time of 4:00pm which would give us 3 hours to get up to the top.We quickly gained vertical and were in awe as more and more terrain opened up. A few weeks to a month earlier the dozens upon dozens of sub couloirs would have been skiable. Now they were a mess of discontinuous snow, lines with massive cracks running right across and all with with huge moats that would swallow you up if you slipped off the side. You could easily spend a week in this one large couloir and not ski all the lines coming off the 2 ridges that protected the main couloir.With such amazing views we were able to climb quickly because our minds were not focased on the never ending line of snow to the top.I set a rest area below some large cliffs in the middle and sat down to wait for Dan and Jer. They were just a few minutes behind. We all snacked and talked about the terrain. The main peak of Tsurugi had now shown itself and it too held quite a few little mini couloirs that a month ago would have been very skiable if not just a little steep.Where we rested was the transition in the run from mellow to steep as immediatly after starting out again the slope quickly got steeper. I kicked steps up to the next rock on the side of the run only slipping once. But that one slip sent the skis on my backpack into the back of my head. It hurt quite a bit so once at the next little rest area I got my axe and helmet out for the rest of the climb. For the first time I found that the helmet also protects my head from my own equipment. Dan and Jer changed into their ski boots here because it would be easier to walk in my steps with a sturdy platform on their feet. I made my way straight up the couloir trying to kick steps for Dan and Jer who were coming up behind. Sometimes my boot went in to my ankle and sometimes I was just standing on my toes as the snow switched from slush to ice. The top of the couloir never seemed to end and the pitch only steepened. At it's steepest it was over 40 degrees and near the top the moats along the sides got wider and very deep. A few times they joined with large cracks that jutted into the couloir creating some very dangerous hazards. I looked into a few of the moats and they easily went for 5 meters in places. Falling into one of them would have been almost as dangerous as falling into a crevesse. But we couldn't turn around so close to the top of the run.A few sweaty minutes later and I was kicking in my last steps before getting to the col. I had hoped from here that we'd easily be able to climb up to the sub peaks on both sides of the run however they were quite steep. Also the col wasn't flat at all but instead dropped over into a another couloir on the other side. We couldn't tell if this couloir went or not but I'd guess that it didn't as it dropped right to the valley floor. The mountains to the north were really nice to look at as it was a new sight that I havn't yet seen.Our couloir topped out at 2850 meters which is pretty cool as the summit of Tsurugi is just below 3000 meters. So we wern't that far below the top even though it sat about 500 meters and along a very difficult ridge away from us.We all took in the view for a while but knew that we'd have to get going so we buckled up our boots and clicked into our bindings. Dan went first through the steep section and skied it well. He stopped about halfway down the first section and then got ready to take pictures of Jer. Jer skied it as he skis everything. Fast, efficient and like it's a ski resort which is why he forgot about all the big cracks. So even though Dan yelled at him to avoid a very large one he still almost skied right into it yelling out that he didn't even know it was there. In true Jer fashoin of course I wonder where he had kept his eyes on the steep bootpack up.I came down last and had a fun time. The snow and pitch was pretty good and combined with the scenery made for a great ski.We leapfrogged eachother down the entire couloir taking our time lower down to rest legs and avoid the few rocks that had fallen off the cliffs above. Soon the run was over and we were at the bottom of our valley. We had skied and climbed 850 meters vertical. We had a good rest at the bottom while entertaining the thought of the 500 meter climb we had to get back to our tents. After a few minutes talking about our line I heard a crash above and looking up and saw a huge boulder rolling down the mellow valley. We moved all our gear to the edge of the run hopefully out of the way and watched as it quickly picked up speed on a steeper section of snow. It eventually stopped but left us with the need to be careful and keep our eyes open. The boulder was easily as big as a car or truck.The next little bit of fun came when we had to fill up our waterbottles. Even though a little creek came down right near where we stopped getting around the cracks and moats to the water was a little interesting and involved some fun scrambling on the greasy slabs.With full waterbottles and full stomachs I put my skins on and clicked into my skis for the 500 meter vertical climb back to camp. I left at 4:20 and said I'd be back at camp by 5:30. It was a difficult climb after such a long day but the grade was gentle enough that I could skin straight up the slope. After numerous short breaks I skinned into camp right at 5:30. The climb had turned out to be pretty easy and I quite enjoyed the challenge of the long day.The total vert climbed for the day was 1800 meters with 1800 meters of skiing. Not bad for an 8 hour day. And not bad at all for summer skiing in late June.After dinner Dan's feet were cold so he and Jer went into the lodge. As i've said numerous times I don't enjoy doing this but I also don't really enjoy sitting outside by myself when my friends are inside talking. So after a bit of sitting in the dark by myself I walked over to the lodge and went in to join them. They were sitting around a Kero heater warming their feet and talking to 4 or 5 Japanese men. It turns out that one of the men had climbed Everest in 1983. I've never met anybody that has climbed any of the 8000 meter peaks so that was pretty cool.Day III had a bad nights sleep on my old MontBell sleeping pad. It really doesn't do very much for protecting my body from the snow. But I managed to get my standard 8-10 hours of sleep while in the mountains.The morning came and with it clouds so we wern't able to enjoy the warm morning sun which would have been very nice. But we emerged from the tents instead to high clouds. At least we could see Tsurugi and the very top of the line we had skied the day before.We packed up camp and were on our way by 7:30. Gaining the saddle at the top of the bowl was a little difficult with the exercise we had had the day before but 30 minutes of grunting and groaning later and we were on top. A quick break and we shouldered our bags for the last bit of climbing to the top of our line.We would ski the same line as we skied 2 weeks earlier. It was just a few meters shorter and a little bit narrower which in my books is just fine.We geared up and leapfrogged down the couloir taking the standard pictures here and there of things that we thought would look good on film. At the bottom we skied over to the rope tow and rode it to the top. I was coming up last and when I finally got to the top in pain from the little plastic rod I had to use heard shouting and swearing coming from Jer. Turns out that he had lost one of his new hiking boots somewhere on the last run. He thought that he would come back the following week to find it but Dan convinced him to go back and get it and even joined him for the grunt back up the run.They had a good rest before starting and then skied away while I watched from a bench and had a nap. They had to pretty much walk up the entire run that we had just skied which even though I'm not going to write very much about here was very exausting on them. I wouldn't have wanted to be in Jer's place at all. Dan found the boot in a shallow moat about 3/4 of the way up the run and I could hear Jer yelling in joy across the valley from where I was sitting on my bench. They had had to gain about 500 meters vertical to get the boot. This wasn't an easy little side trip.They skied back down the run putting some more tracks on the snow and were very soon coming up the ropetow one last time.They rested at the top and then repacked their bags and we set off to bus station.As it was only 12:30 when we got back to the bus station Dan and I wanted to try and ski out as far as the snow would let us. I've always wanted to do this and as this was our last chance we fealt that we had better do it. Jer had had enough which I can't say I blame him what with the little boot incedent and the huge climb we did the day before. We loaded all our overnight gear into his backpack and then set off with day bags up the hill right next to the bus station at 1:00pm.We had to gain a fair bit of elevation and once on the top of the first bump it looked like we were almost level with the top of the Raicho face. Dan and I had never skied in this area before so it was interesting seeing everything from a different angle. We had a quick rest as the clouds moved in and wondered how we would complete the traverse out if we couldn't see the route in front of us. We were lucky though in that we had really scouted the route the day before on the bus ride up and that the clouds always seemed to open up just when we needed them to. The traverse went fine for a bit until we came to what looked like a knife edge ridge. I didn't remember seeing that from the bus. We skied up to it and found that it wasn't nearly as steep as it looked from afar however we found that if we traversed high around the mountain we should be able to bypass all the bumps on the ridge. This worked out and we finally found ourselves with bushes in front of us. We knew we'd have to do some bushwacking here but we had to do it in the right place to join up with the next patch of snow. We tried our hardest to spot the next patch and climbed a few of the large rocks around before I finally spotted the snow. We shouldered our bags and forced our way through the thick bush to the snow patch. I had my best skiing of the trip here as the snow was pretty soft and there wasn't any ice bulges to grab at the ski edges. We kept skiing down and wherever possible traversed left trying to find an entrance to the next snow field. I got a little close a few times to the alder patches on the sides and paid for it when my ski went under a branch that was fixed in the snow. My boot easily popped out of the binding and that is the first time I've released from my touring bindings. At least I know they release.We had to walk up a few sections to find a way around sasa fields but once we entered the coniferous forest lower down it was an easy traverse to the hotel where we'd have to board the bus.The traverse was really fun and at the same time very exausting. Dan and I were both spent from such a hard weekend. Once we got on the bus it was really hard for me to keep the little amount of food that was in my stomach down. Sometimes when I exaust myself so much I feel like I'm going to be sick. It's not a good feeling but it is kind of a feeling of accomplishment for me. What a good way to end the season. We skied two routes that we wanted and I think that now I've skied a line on just about all the mountains that I wanted. Now I'll just have to come back in the future and clean up a few of the scraps I've left over.A great season and a great trip in the mountains.Counting up my days on the journals. I skied 52 days of either 3 hours or more at a resort or 300 meters or more vertical in the backcountry. If you count my shorter days in the backcountry around Takayama it brings my total to 65. But I won't count those. 52 ski days isn't bad at all considering that I broke my foot and wasn't skiing for about 6 weeks.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
8th June 2006
After skiing everywhere except Tateyama this past spring Dan, Jer and I headed into this very familier place in early June. The plan was to ski the S-Couloir that I solo-skied around the same time last year.Day 1We finally got onto the snow at 9:30 in the morning and quickly skied down to the the camp area. Surprisingly there were only 2 other tents and they wern't there for skiing.Sadly as soon as we got to the camp all we had to do was look up at the main peak of Tateyama to see that this spring has been both warm and wet. The ridglines were snow free and the S-Couloir was no longer skiable. The main line off of Tateyama wasn't even skiable off the summit anymore. Strange because we just got through a really big snow year.But just because there wasn't much snow in that area didn't mean that everything looked bad. I spotted a really nice skinny run near the bikini line that really looked fun.We quickly set up our camp and after a little food set off up the Raicho face. I was skinning after a long absense. It felt great to have the skis on my feet instead of my back. I was able to skin up to the base of the final steep section which was pretty good. I would have had to walk anyways because the ridge was snow free. I made it to the lodge in 65 minutes. Not sure how long it usually takes us but it fealt pretty good. Dan and Jer showed up a few minutes later and we all chilled. A quick snack and we walked over to the entrance to the Tsurugizawa bowl. There was a lot more snow here and it looked really nice. So instead of just skiing back to camp we decided to get a run in on this face. We hiked for about 20 minutes longer before getting to the end of the ridge and after some more resting got ready for our first run.I had skied this run in zero visibility late last July. It was pretty good then. It being nearly 2 months earlier now the snow was really fun. I went first and made some really fun high speed turns to the flats below. Jer and Dan joined me and also had pretty good runs.We had to hike back up to the saddle but that only took about 20 minutes. We again rejoined the ridge and quickly made it to the top of our second run. I walked to the entrance and could see that the run went all the way and was indeed pretty skinny. Enough room to turn for sure with a little bit of hazard from cracks and very deep moats. I again went first and made some fun jump turns down to the crux where I could take pictures of Dan and Jer. They both skied it really well and we leap frogged eachother down the run getting a tonne of pictures. At the bottom Dan fealt like he needed some more vertical so he went off to hike for another run while Jer and I fealt the need for relaxation. We spent the rest of the day chilling around our camp waiting for the sun to set.I convinced Dan and Jer that an onsen before dinner was better and we set off for a good bath. It fealt really nice. We must have spent an hour in there and as usual I don't enjoy hanging out in the lodges after. I skied back to get ready for dinner while Dan and Jer sat inside drying out their gear. There must have been some miscommunication though because they were in the lodge for well over an hour after I left.For me the mountains are an escape from Japan. In Canada if you get wet clothing you have to suffer through it. That is why I have bought good gear. I don't have to suffer through drying out wet clothing. Hanging out in a lodge that you havn't paid for isn't what I like to do on a trip. I'll admit I have gone into a few huts to get out of the weather but I certainly don't feel comfortable doing it.Anyways Jer and Dan eventually came back to camp and we ate a great dinner while watching an amazing sunset. The sky turned bright red and I thought "Red sky at night, sailor's delight" might come through for us...Day 2 Around the same time as my feet started to freeze it also started raining. It got heavier and heavier as the night went on with the heaviest rain being just around sunrise which in this country happens way to early.The line we were going to ski was a run I've always wanted to get into. We would have had to ski under some large cornices so with the heavy rain that idea was quickly scrapped. We stayed in our tents till 8 when the rain stopped and when we emerged the tops of the mountains were covered in clouds. We had the idea that we'd pack up and move all our gear to the bus station where if we fealt like it we'd go for another run around there. A good idea except in the back of our heads we all probably wanted to get out.We left camp at 10 taking the rope tow up the first and longest slope. I was able to keep my skis on for almost the entire trip to Murodo station. Like all trips in the spring around Tateyama once you get to Murodo it's like you've just skied into Shinjuku station. There are so many people and they all look like they just came out from the first mornings meeting. Always entertaining.No surprise when we were all at the station at 11:00am we quickly packed it in and headed inside.A fun relaxed weekend in the mountains. 2 runs skied and I slept for 12 hours Saturday night. Even though we didn't ski anything Sunday I still didn't get home till mid afternoon.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
26th November 2005
After such a great 1st weekend skiing in the Tateyama area last week I had to have 1 more go of it before they foolishly close the road till the warmer temperatures of spring. Saturday - Nick wasn't able to join me however Dan very enthusiastically took his place. We met in Kamioka at the still dark hour of 6am and quickly made our way to Tateyama station. Geared up and on a bus as soon as possible we were on the snow hiking to our camp by 10am. The hotels were almost all closed as it is the end of the season and tenters were so bold as to camp right outside the bus station. Dan and I trudged a bit further than that though and ended up behind the large hotel overlooking some rather large cliffs. We decided to get our tent up right away and quickly dug into the massive snow drift already more than 3 metres tall. As this was Dan's first winter trip and he hasn't used a beacon yet we had to do some warmup drills before getting fully underway. But we got a short steep run in right before that dropping into an area I hadn't yet been. We had followed Tatsuo's tracks as he was again camped right next to us. They led us into a nice and steep short line that went between some cliffs. Good start to the day and I'll have to remember that line for next year. We made our way past the Raicho campsite crossed the river and quickly stamped out an area to practice our self rescue. I don't do this nearly enough and I had a good time playing around and looking for the hidden beacon. Really something that everybody should do more than a couple times a season. Close to an hour later and with frozen hands we both agreed that if anything happened I'd either die and Dan would steal my gear off of my frozen body or he'd rescue me and demand repayment of said rescue with new gear.But with Dan hopefully able to rescue me we set up Raicho in hopes for a good powder run down the standard route. I was a little weary about getting onto unskied areas as just a couple days before a 51 year old Japanese fellow was killed in an avalanche close to the Bus station. I didn't know too many details about the slide but didn't want a repeat of this tragic accident.As Dan doesn't have touring skis he was climbing Raicho on snowshoes. There was a well beaten path leading straight up the slope that he quickly got on. I on the other hand need to switchback in places and ended up cutting my own trail for most of the climb. People had been skinning up the steep track however I can't do that and so had to set about breaking my own trail. This is alright though and I was able to keep Dan in my sight most of the way. When I could use the skin track I would catch up quite a bit however on 2 steep switchbacks my skis slid out from me and I ended up in the snow unhappy and cold. I was making good progress though as on the next ridgline over I could see Tatsuo breaking trail straight up and I he wasn't making any ground on me. As we gained elevation the clouds would clear everyonce in a while and I could look down towards the campsite and see a line of BC skiers making their way up the slope. Not that there is anything wrong with it but I could also see them using my new and easier skin track. I would do the same thing had the skin track been in there but I wish that the previous skinners hadn't been so lazy and had put a better route in rather than following the snowshoers straight up the slope.I caught up to Dan near the top when he either stopped to wait for me or was just to tired to go on and we had a descision to make. We were on a narrow ridgline with either rocks above to go through or a steep slope to skin across. We were within about 20 or 30 metres vertical of the top hut. I didn't feel comfortable skinning around the rocks and wouldn't be able posthole. A fall in these rocks would not be good. Dan wouldn't be able to traverse the steep slope. Visibility was down to 10 metres or so and didn't look like it would improve so I called it and we quickly got ready for our ski down. Dan went first and made good tracks through the deep powder however he wished he had wax on his skis and or was using his new fatskis. I followed him down and we picked our way through the few tracks on the face finding fresh lines here and there until we were at the bottom. A really good run with about 600 or 700 metres of vert skied including the little run before.Back at the campsite we got our skins and shoes back on and made our way back to our camp. The first bit of slope always seperates the men from the boys. This is the same slope as the ski hill and although I always dread skinning up it it isn't that difficult and it's fun passing young people that are nearly having heart attacks. When I got to the top Dan was about 3/4 up. He had not brought enough food and was crashing hard. I couldn't help him as I didn't have any left on me. He knows the area so I set off towards camp on my own. What seemed like forever of up and down traversing on this hellish ridgline and I was back at camp.I quickly dug a hole next to the tent to put our feet and stove into and made some ramen and hot chocolate for Dan who would need food. He didn't show however and I started to get worried thinking that he had crashed and passed out somewhere or was delerious and wandering through the poison gas area. I was just about to set off looking for him when he showed up an hour after I left him. He had gone to the bus station to call Risa and have some food. His apology of 2 tall cans of beer was more than enough though. I got dinner going and with a half empty Hot Chocolate bottle filled it with JD making for a good toxic mixture.As there wasn't much going on we got into bed at my usual backcountry bedtime of 7:30.Sunday - The pressure dropped drastically around 4:00am signaling the arrival of a monster storm. We were on the lee side of a big building however the wind was still rattling the tent a bit and was blowing around quite a bit of snow. So much that the back wall of the tent up against Dan was almost completly filled with snow pushing Dan over about 15cms in his little tent. Without the snow the tent is only 100cm wide so with the decreased space from the extra snow it was getting a little stuffy. Dan who went to bed wearing all of his clothing including ski pants and jacket was able to easily get out of bed at 6:00am before the sun came up to shovel us out. I remained in the warmth of my bag a little longer than that but soon joined him in the blizzard outside. What to do was what we were asking ourselves. I walked around to the front of the buildingto relieve myself and was nearly blown over by the strong wind and had I been without goggles would have been blinded by the tiny snowflakes. We unamanously made the easy descision to bail out however I wanted a warm breakfast so we spent a bit of time digging a snow shelter into the drift behind the tent. While I tried to get my stove going Dan packed everything up. I gave up trying to light my stove as my lighter was empty and and my matches kept going out in the strong wind. It didn't help that the stove was constantly being covered in snow. I too packed up and we retreated to the bus station. It's kind of nice being so close to civilzation in this sort of situation. Crossing the plain back to the bus station was like being on a glacier in white out conditions. It would have been really easy to get turned around had I not known where I was going. When we got to the bus station we found nearly all the campers inside having bailed out themselves. We got into line hoping to get the first bus. That turned into a long wait as the road was too dangerous to drive on. We ended up waiting for 4 hours before it was clear enough and when we could go it was in a convoy of 7 full buses behind 2 giant snowplows. We finally got to Tateyama Station at 3:00pm. 6 hours after first stepping into Murodo Station.This trip was a really good experience and a fun time. It's too bad that it will be some months before I'm able to easily get back into this area.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
19th November 2005
Nearly 1 month after I thought I'd get my first turns of the season on Norikura I finally got to ski in the Tateyama area on the November 19/20 weekend.Nick came out from Kyoto Friday night sleeping at my place and we woke nice and early to a really cold apartment Saturday morning. Up and away I was happy to see that it was snowing lightly in Takayama. It was even sticking to the trees and road as we went over the pass above Nagareha ski hill. We arrived at the station at 7:30 and found it to be really busy. They were better organized than last year though and had the road clear of snow just a few minutes later. The terminal was packed with backcountry skiers and boarders. As there is construction on the top tram terminal we were fortunate to be able to take a bus straight to Morodo station saving both time and energy. I've said it before but I really hate having to take the little uphill train, trolly, tram thingy. We finally made it up to the station at 10. We were going to meet a guy that had contacted us about BC skiing. His name was Chris and he was coming up from the Nagano side. He wouldn't be up till 11:30 though. We thought we had lots of time so got ready and stepped outside. It was snowing lightly. We skinned over to the hotel easily enough only to find that it was still open. There were lots of campers around that had done the same thing. We had camped behind this hotel the year before. It saves having to descend all the way to Raicho-zawa camp. But that was what we were faced with now. In the spring it is easy to just ski down this valley getting to the tent area in about 5 or 10 minutes. Early winter is quite a bit different as we found out. One of the campers that also thought of putting his tent behind the lodge was the Landmade Big Mountain skier Tatsuo Hayashi out of Hakuba. We always run into him in this area. Nick and I set off with our big bags with Tatsuo just behind us. We soon found ourselves at the bottom faced with an open creek that meandered back and forth across the narrow valley. After a few sketchy snow bridges and good conversations with Tatsuo later we were getting close to the camp. However we found ourselves on the wrong side of the creek with nowhere to go. In front of us was a steep bank we couldn't go up with the creek right up against it. I tried traversing the bottom of it however the snow collapsed on me and I faceplanted with my big backpack. I couldn't move with the weight of my bag on top of me and my feet attached to the skis beneath me so Tatsuo had to unclick my bindings for me. A long process that was made even worse because I thought I might either punch through the snow to the water below or roll into the creek right next to me. But it all worked out and I had my skis back on and we were across. We only had one more crossing and we would be at camp. This crossing was easy enough however we had to go through a bit of wet snow and water which really messes up the base of your skis when the water freezes. Our bases were all balled up with snow and once we were at camp I had to set about scraping it off with my ice-axe and shovel blade. Getting to camp had taken over an hour and we were now late for meeting Chris who we tried calling numerous times with no luck. But we were at camp and it would take us about an hour to get back to the bus station. Faced with that dilema we started digging out our camp hoping Chris would find his own way to the camp area which he did after waiting for 30 minutes. He skied and shuffled the along the summer route which would have been much quicker than our creek hopping route. With our camps set up and a few hours left in the day we set out for a quick run. We were going to gain a ridge for a short run back to camp. It took a while skinning up as the face was steep and I had to break the trail but we were soon on the ridge watching a group of 5 ptarmigans walk around on the snow. A quick rest and a stability pit dug by Nick and we were off on our first run. As I broke trail all the way in I got first tracks. We went down a different way than we came up though and as I skied down realized that this wasn't exactly a good idea. Halfway down the slope was a cliff band. I stopped off to the side of it and radioed up to Nick telling him this and to tell Chris to come down to me which he did shortly. We then radioed Nick however he never turned up and we were both just starting to think he had went down another way when he finally came down after double ejecting from his new touring bindings. Strange. He stopped just above me and released a nice blocky slab which quickly broke into sluff. But it was a scary second or two watching everying around me break and slide away. We all met up at the bottom after that little scare and traversed to the creek to get a turn or two more. This was our second mistake of the run as we were too far down the valley and would have to walk back up the creek. It seemed easier at first until once again we were faced with a very steep cut slope with water right up against it. Nick wanted to climb up the hill to the flat terrace above however the water was only 10-15cms deep at it's deepest. As my boots are much more waterproof than regular ski boots I went first. I took off my skis on a large drift that went down to the water and immediatly fell through up to my armpits. Kind of like falling through a crevesse I guess. Climbing out and looking down we could see the undercut bank that I had fallen into. I safely got across the creek with no wet feet and then Nick and Chris threw their skis across to me and crossed themselves. No problems at all. We were soon back at camp thinking about all the mistakes we had made today and hoping that would be the last of our bad luck.The temperature quickly dropped as the light turned to dark and we set about melting snow for dinner and trying to stomach the whisky Nick had brought along. After dinner and while getting ready for bed one of the Japanese fellows right next to us gave us lots of very delicious sake that they were trying to get rid of. We didn't have a problem helping them out at all. I finally got into bed at 9:30 with the temperature outside the tent being -7Sunday - It got pretty cold in the early morning hours with the inside of the tent being -7. It would be much colder outside. But both Nick and I were warm in our bags. Nick had just bought a -25 down bag and was very toasty. While I was using my old down bag along with my overbag. With some extra layers on I was toasty. But we had to get up as there was fresh snow to be skied. We were able to cook our breakfast of Ramen while staying in our sleeping bags but soon we had to get out. It had warmed up a bit but was still well below zero. We packed up most of our gear and then finally set off for some runs at 8:30. We were going to ski a nice chute on the side of the Raicho face that didn't have any tracks in it. Saddly though a lone telemarker was putting in a skin track right up the narrow chute. The guy was kind of silly as there was a perfect skin track in the next chute over that would have left our run untracked. But that is life and he wanted to check out the run as he skinned up which wasn't exactly a bad thing either. Skins off at the top we got ready and Nick dropped in first. The snow was really dry. I went second and had a great run. Very fun. Chris only made it up about half way so he dropped in 3rd from a different spot and we all had big smiles at the bottom and were ready for another run.Nick wanted a steep chute however I fealt that getting into it would be very difficult. So in usual Matt form I voted on my line and forced us into doing that. It did give us something to bicker about most of the way up as everytime we stopped to catch our breath we could look over and see the nice looking line. I broke trail most of the way up however to save the slope we had to get onto a ridge where the snow was just over top of shrubs and sasa. Each step the snow would collapse making trail breaking difficult. But I lasted a ways on this before letting Nick take over for the final 4 or 5 switchbacks. As we were climbing up for our 2nd run we also saw that a group of 5 were getting into the steep run that Nick wanted to ski. They would have beaten us in there anyways and it turned out that getting to the top of the run wasn't very difficult for them at all. But we had our run to think about which was a nice wide powder field going at a good angle right to the valley bottom. All geared up Nick beat me on the Janken for first tracks but I beat Chris so got to go second which was nice. The second run's snow wasn't as dry as the first but it was a great run none the less.After that run our bodies had had enough and we went back to camp to pack up and head out. Just as we got back the sky opened and all of a sudden we could see the entire Tateyama peak. There were tracks all over it but most of them would have been put in while the clouds were thick. We were a little jealous of people that were up there but it would have been a gamble and we chose visibility over peak bagging. I've stood on the summit of Tateyama 4 times now (3 of them with skis) and Nick twice. It would have been a great run though.Packs on we had to make the slog back up the hill to the bus station. It wasn't as bad as we made it out to be and we were on the top of the steepest part in 15 minutes. From there it was just an annoying up, down, left and right traverse back. We said goodbye to Chris had got onto the first bus we could. I had to sit on the front stair though as they had let just 1 extra person on. But it was a nice if not a bit uncomfortable front row seat for the 90 minute ride.We all had a good time out and it was great to get the first turns of the season in on such soft and dry snow.
Backcountry Skiing – Tateyama – Tsurugi Area
23rd July 2005
Last week while hiking past Tsurugidake I found many of the couloirs to still be filled with continous snow. Could I actually ski in July?I decided to find out and set into motion a plan of mid-summer skiing in the North Alps of Japan. I would do a 2 day trip going super light. No bivi sack. Just a light sleeping bag and stove. Why I decided to not bring my bivi sack is a mystery to me. It only weighs about 1 kg. I was carrying my steel crampons. Those alone weigh 1-2kg. But off I went with only a light sleeping bag for my nights sleep. The weather report late Friday night for Toyama was sun. Early Saturday morning in Toyama it was cloud to sun. Getting up to Murodo at 8:00am I found everything to be wet. Looking at my keitei forcast I found that the weather was now cloud to rain. I was screwed. I had spent more than 4000yen getting up into the mountains on the promise of fine weather only to find that once up there it had changed. I didn't want to ski my couloir in bad weather. What if under zero visability I skied into an open crevasse. Not safe. So I unpacked my bag putting everything I didn't need into a locker. I was going to go for a few safer runs in the area of Tsurugi but not on Tsurugi. If the weather cleared I could still camp. So with a much lighter pack with skis attached I made my way up the hill to the saddle. I climbed on snow for most of the way before finding the trail to the saddle and it's hut. A quick water break and I was on my way to a little summit nearby. I knew from the previous week that there was a snow line that went right off the ridge all the way to the camping area in Tsurugizawa. A good long break hoping for the weather to clear found me just waiting longer. So I got ready and decided to ski the line close to the rocks on the side hoping hoping for a little definition on the slope. Visibility was very bad but it was really nice to be back on the skis. The slope was steep and soon I was out of the clouds skiing down to the flats below. A fun run. A quick rest and I booted up to a different area for another run. Climbing up I saw a nice skinny finger of snow. I climbed into it and once at the top got ready for run number 2. Skis back on I made some fun turns on the skinny line. The snow was nice and smooth. Out onto the broad slope the snow changed and I was again fighting for turns. It was skiing though. I just had to keep that in my mind. I skied out to the campsite where I had a nice long break sitting on a large rock. The weather would open up a bit and then close but Tsurugi always remained in the clouds. I hiked back up to the hut above me and after a nice rest there saw a really nice short steep line nearby. I hiked out to it and at the top got ready again and was on the snow. It was really steep. More than 45 degrees and ended suddenly on a scree slope. Very nice. Too bad it was short. Back at the bottom and skis back on my backpack I went back to the hut but not before getting stuck behind a large group of about 20 older ladies. They were all amazed that I had skis on my back and wondered if I was skiing. Seems like a stupid question but I guess it is late July. Back at the hut and another rest it was getting into the afternoon so I thought I had best get back to the bus station. I had to hike down the slope for a bit before my snow line started. This line twisted and turned all the way down to Raichozawa where I had a really good break and watched the many people. On a tiny little snow patch nearby there were about 10 skiers race training. They were decked out in the best gear even wearing downhill suits. Odd thing was they couldn't ski worth crap. They were falling down and snowplowing through the course set up. I had to chuckle at that one. Skis again on my back I made my way back to the bus station where my new keitei forcast called for cloud. Although it didn't rain I wouldn't have been able to ski my line. I was happy to have made the a good decision about leaving my overnight gear at Murodo and skiing safe lines. Sad about making the previous bad decision about leaving my bivisack at home. Oh well. A good day out and the snow left me thinking that it is indeed summer and skiing is now finished. I'll just have to wait to ski Tsurugi until next summer.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
7th June 2005
With my school immersed in Mid-Term Exams I found myself with 4 days of work free work. Looking at the weather however I was only promised 1 day of good condition. That 1 day was Tuesday so I took a vacation day bought some food and went to bed very early Monday night3:30 - My alarm goes off however I'm deeply asleep dreaming of steep lines and powder days3:40 - My alarm goes off and I actually wake up and jump out of bed. A quick shower and I'm off killing what I hope to be the 4th and last cockroach that was looking through my pile of gear next to the door. The nice thing about traveling early in the morning is that roads are deserted except for a few lunatic truck drivers. They are usually nice and pull over to let you pass although some arn't and you are forced to drive at an insanely low speed waiting for a straight section of road which in Japan can be kilometres upon kilometres away. But I made it to Tateyama station just before 6. I thought the first tram was at 6:40 but turns out that is only for busy times. The first wasn't till 7:00 so I passed the time watching the few people that were out vacationing on this early weekday morning. No-doubt they were curiously watching me as well. 7:00 came around and I boarded the tram with just a few people. Getting to the top 10 minutes later I was informed that the first bus wouldn't be till 7:40. I was not happy. I'll have to plan this better next time.I was finally on the snow at 8:30 skinning towards my objective. I was going to attempt my dream line. This is a hairy line that I spotted while skiing with Sandy and Nick over Golden Week 1 month before. We had many discussions about whether or not it was in fact skiable. From the camp area it looks very steep and constricts down in a very narrow section before making an S shaped curve to the exit. I traversed all the way around the bowl trying not to loose any elevation and was soon at the bottom of my line. My skis came off, crampons, helmet and ice-axe came out and I started front pointing up the slope. From the bottom of the couloir I couldn't see very far because of the S-curve. I wouldn't know if the line was skiable until I was actually faced with the crux. I quickly made it through the S-curve and was next faced with the crux of the couloir which was the skinny. I was excited to find that it was very skiable and at it's narrowest was about 2-3 metres wide. More than enough to get through. I front pointed up gaining elevation quickly. After the skinny section I was then faced with the steepest part. An off fall line section that was close to 50 degrees. This was the most interesting part of the ascent as it's the steepest snow I have ever climbed. The snow was firm though and I practically ran up it with the aide of my crampons, ice-axe and adrenaline that was flowing. I was soon past the difficulties with the rest of the couloir relaxing to an easy 40 degrees. I arrived on the ridge at 10:30 and had to have a break to let my heart slow down and body dry off as I was sweating like a pig. I scrambled up to the highest bump for the nice view. Nothing new however as I've been in this area so many times now. A quick break and I had to start my descent. I didn't want the snow to become too soft. Clicking in I made some fun turns down the first easy section. The 2nd half of the couloir was the good part and it didn't dissapoint. The steep off-falline section was really fun with nice corn and then I was into the tight 2-3 metre section. As the walls are very steep the sun doesn't get onto this line for more than an hour or 2 a day. The fresh snow from the weekend was still very soft and I witnessed my first high speed wet snow slide. I can't really say it was high speed though. Just fast. Usually the wet sluffs and slides that I see are very slow moving however with the angle of this couloir they sped up quickly. I just moved off to the side to let it run it's course before following it down. It wasn't really dangerous as it was just surface sluff but it was definitly interesting. I had to make tight turns which was lots of fun. Soon the tight section was passed though and I was making the last few turns through the S-curve before being spit out onto the open face below. An amazing run and a step up in my ascending/descending backcountry skiing experience. The day wasn't finished though and after a nice long break I traversed all the way back across the bowl. I was going to ski off a small subpeak that was somewhere in the range of 2700-2800 metres tall. on route I noticed at the bottom of the run there was a really narrow line. It looked to be maybe 50 cm's wide, steep and about 30 metres long. I would have to ski it. The bump I was now aiming for would let me open it up with big turns as the last run only let me make small turns. After another long break on the top I once again clicked into my skis and skied the face. It was really nice and pretty steep. I found the entrance to my little line only to find that I had been tricked and it was a bit wider than it had appeared from below. Maybe 2 metres wide. Wanting to see if I could get my 185cm skis around on the 200cm wide line I attempted 2 or 3 turns before letting it go and lining it to the end. Really fun. On a weekend I would have taken about 10 people out on the exit but as this was a weekday there were only 2 hikers and they didn't even notice. As I had planned this last run to give me an easy exit I pointed my skis across the slope and easily traversed back to the station. An end to a great day out having bagged a line that was bugging me to be skied.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
4th June 2005
Pursuing the endless season I set my eyes on Tateyama once again. Along for the ride were Dan, Bill and Chris. Dan would be skiing with me and Bill and Chris would be hiking.SaturdayWe left early Saturday and surprisingly arrived at an empty Tateyama station. Maybe the Japanese knew something we didn't. I was expecting thunder and lightening for Saturday night but it was still early Saturday morning. We got up to the top to high gray skies with the ceiling being just below 3000 metres. We quickly made it to the campsite and set it all up. Dan bought a new tent so we were both in that. It was a very nice Mont Bell 4 season tent. Just as we set up camp it started to rain so we made our way over to the onsen for an early beer. The weather was interesting with very heavy hail, rain and thunder and lightning. An hour of bull shitting later and it quickly cleared up to patchy clouds. We got geared up and started our way up the Raicho-zawa face. Dan and I were going to ski the Bikini line while Bill and Chris were going to make it up to the 2800 metre sub-peak on the ridge. About 30 minutes into the skin the weather moved in with very evil looking clouds coming in off the ocean. As Bill and Chris were hiking if the weather turned bad they would have to walk back taking a long time. They bailed back to camp with Dan and I continuing on. Further up the face a few rain drops fell. I contemplated turning back as well but after shouting across to Dan descided to keep going to the top. I was kind of worried being on the ridge with my skis attached to my back and the lightning we had heard before and would come again in the future. But I kept going and we made it to the top in a very fast hour. The weather had completly moved in though and while it wasn't raining visability was very bad. We rested inside the top hut for a while before desciding to go. We made out way up the ridge and over to the start of our line. Nick, Sandy and I had skied this run 1 month before during Golden Week. It hadn't changed very much at all other than being a bit skinnier. We quickly made our way down making nice small turns. It was fun as Dan was just a few turns behind me the entire way as the visability was so poor. He had no idea the run was so skinny as we couldn't see anything. Nice and steep. Making our way back to camp we found Chris and Bill moping around. They had started building a wall and at first didn't find it fun at all but soon realized that the only other option was sitting on the wet snow. Soon we had a really nice cooking area complete with a nice bench for all of us to sit. While we were building up our camp Dan had gone for another run into the same area as Nick and I always ski. He had taken my skis along. For the descent though he forgot to lock down the heals and had a good tumble at the top. Would have been funny to see. It was soon dinner time and after the first pot of water was cooked it started to lightly drizzle so with onsen stuff and all our food we again made our way to the shelter of the hut. A nice covered dinner and then it was time for the onsen. A great way to end the day. We went to bed to the sound of rain which in the early evening hours sounded pretty heavy.SundayThe temperatures dropped in the night and soon we all had cold feet. 4:30 came around and I had had enough so I got up as it was already light out anyways. We could see the mountains although the tops were still covered in cloud. After a good breakfast though the clouds suddenly vanished and the temperatures quickly rose. We packed everything up and at 7 started the walk/skin out. We were going to leave our heavy bags at the top of the plateau to retrieve on our way back after our summit attempt. The snow down low was still soft from the rain the day before however the higher we went the harder it got. Very good for skinning. We quickly made it to the base of the ridge and after a quick rest started up. I was a ways back after having to fiddle with my skis for a bit but that gave me something to work for. About 2/3 of the way up I saw Dan quickly making his way back down. He had forgotten his poles at the hut. Sucks for him. Bill and Chris were still ahead though and we would wait for him at the top. Bill and Chris made it up in a very speedy 45 minutes. Could have been 40 but they were taking pictures just below the hut. I made it in 50 and Dan summited in a very quick 80 minutes after having hiked most of it twice. The weather was amazing. We were above the clouds and the sky was an amazing blue. After many many summit pictures we descided to get going. I was going to ski the same face Nick and I had skied back in April while Dan was going to ski the chute Nick, Sandy and I had skied in Golden Week. Both would be good runs. The chute would be fun for steep tight turns while my face would be good for steep fast wide open turns. I went first and had a blast. It was amazing. The corn had softened just right. I was able to get second tracks down the face in the new hail that had fallen the night before. Looking up at my line was really nice seeing the big turns that I had made coming down. At the bottom I traversed out and was so pumped up that I took my skis off and booted up a different steep chute getting about 200 extra metres. It was really nice making some fast turns back to our bags. I could see Dan's line now as well. Very nice. Even as we were leaving on the bus his were the only fresh tracks in it. Bill and Chris quickly made there way down and we could here them having fun sliding on a few plastic bags. We made our way back to the station and our trip was over. A great 2 days in the mountains even if 1 of them was a little wet.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
29th April 2005
Tateyama Golden Week Backcountry SkiingDay 1The day finally arrived and we (Sandy, Nick and Myself) departed to Tateyama for our Golden Week Vacation. Driving out to the station we were hit with heavy rain coming from Typoon number 3. Although it didn't making landfall number 3 still pushed some rain into our area. We stopped at a combini to buy some last minute stuff which included garbage bags and more liqueur. We managed to cram all the food into our bags and hoisting them on our shoulders walked to the station. After a few photo ops with Chinease Tourists we made it inside the station to find it virtually deserted. The weather was keeping a lot of people away but we were too fired up to notice. Getting up to Murodo Station we were greated with a cold, damp and packed building. While changing into his longjohns Nick was spanked by a female Chinease Tourist who was far to excited to watch him change. After shivering for a bit inside the building we made the descision to get moving and made our way outside. Sandy and Nick were both sporting garbage bag jackets to fend off the rain. Sandy had tried to make a poncho however it quickly became a half shirt it the strong wind. We made our way to camp in the thick clouds with visibility of only a couple metres. If we hadn't known the way it would have been very easy to get turned around and very lost. We found the campsite and picked a spot to dig in. Nick and I were both surprised that our wall from the weekend before had been reduced to an unnoticable bump. It was raining really hard but we had to dig a wall to protect the tents. We dug a monster wall out of the easily carvable snow and set up the tents as quickly as possible. Sandy and I were in the small 2 man tent and Nick was in the larger "4" man tent. We were all pretty wet although Nick seemed to be the wettest. It didn't help that his tent was already soaked right through. We all crammed into his tent and as there was really nothing to do popped the lid on the JD, Sandy's homemade liquer and played some drinking games. Sandy and Nick didn't fare to well and pretty much polished the bottles off themselves. There was another gaijin in the tent area so in a brief lull in the rain we invited him over opened up the Umechu and pretty much finished that off as well. The 4th person in the tent was an American named Brandon and was going to climb Tsurugi the next day. Sandy tried to teach us a card game however we wern't interested at all and in what seemed to be the end of the storm emerged from the tent to find that our monster wall had been reduced to tatters. Our beautiful blocks looked like an old shirt filled with holes. We quickly found that in the spring a simple wall would not do. We would have to build a fortress. So once again we set out to build walls. This time making them huge with bases of 2 metres. We were pretty much ready for anything now. We cooked an early dinner and quickly got into bed to a clearing sky. Day 2With Typoon number 3 past we awoke to a bright blue sky and really nice frozen snow. We tried to gear up quickly however wet gear slowed us down. As usual our good friend the big mountain skier left camp about half an hour before us. That is the 3rd time we have seen him in this area. Rubbing elbows with the stars.We set out to ski a 2872 metre peak that Nick and I had spotted the week before. It had a cool line off the summit. I was able to skin directly up the steep icy snow which in winter would have had me floundering. I set a good pace for myself and arrived near the hut in the saddle in just over an hour. Knocking 30 minutes off of the previous weeks time. Nick and Sandy arrived shortly after and attaching skis to bags we set off. I again set a good pace and made it to the snow covered bump first passing a group of snowboarders who were heading to the same line as we were. Not wanting to get 2nd tracks I found an easy way up to the 2872 metre summit. There were 2 entries onto the face. The first involved dropping onto a 50 degree face. The 2nd although not as steep was a line which was skiable off of the summit. I like skiing off of summits so chose the 2nd line. As I was ready to go I jumped in and found execellent snow. The line was steep and the snow fast. It fealt great. Sandy jumped in on the steeper line next and skied it pretty good seeing as it was his first time skiing steep spring snow. Nick ripped it as usual. We still wanted more so made another couple turns to the bottom of the bowl getting cheers from some other skiers who had been watching. Not wanting the day to end we skinned back to the saddle for a rest before attaching skis to backpacks for the slog to the summit. It wasn't icy like the week before however that made it seem worse as there wasn't anything to concentrate on. It was now a muddy grunt of a climb. I was determined to get some excersise out of it though and pushed myself making it to the top faster than the week before. Nick arrived a few mintutes later with Sandy coming up 3rd crashing a bit from our previous exlpoits. While resting up we watched a few people ski our line from last week. Although the powder was nice last week the corn looked so nice on this face. We talked about different lines we wanted to ski with a Slovanian Guide who was leading a Japanese group. He was telling us of an amazing line off of the summit of Tsurugi which never gets skied. I wouldn't mind hiring a guide next year for that line. Fully rested we made our way into our chute. We were going to ski the chute facing the Murodo Bus station. A good 40-45 degree chute descending to the plain below. Nick went first and ripped it all the way to the bottom. I went second and had a really good run. Sandy also ripped it the bottom. We were all really pumped up about the cool line. Now on the open face we all made GS turns in the very soft snow over to the different line I wanted to hit. I had scouted it on the skin up and it was basically a short cliff band that had a been filled in with snow. My run was fun doing jump turns inbetween to cliffs. Sandy straighlined a cool very steep chute and Nick jumped off of the cornice. A great way to end the ski day.We skied back to camp and as it was only 2ish dried everything out in the afternoon sun and continued to build our walls. After dinner we wandered over to the onsen. A great way to finish up an amazing day. Day 3Nick and Sandy spotted a cool line that looked like a Bikini top. It was a narrow chute that would drop us right back at camp.We set out much earlier up the face towards Tsurugi. I was very dehydrated so that kept me back with the other two but we still made it up to the hut in good time. The weather was hazy with clouds coming in so at the top I got a weather report which didn't look good. 70 percent chance of rain. We were going to do some laps in the bowl below Tsurugi however we wanted to get back to camp to secure some stuff if the rain hit early. We made the right descision though as the chute was in perfect form. We all skied it great with Nick cutting a line right between the boobs of the bikini. Back at camp we secured the tents and after a short break started skinning up the same run we have done each time we come to this area. With darkening clouds rolling in we started our run. It was amazing with high speed turns down the steep open face. Of the 3 times Nick and I have skied this face this was by far the best. Each time we have also started from a little higher up. Back at camp we opened up our celebratory stashed in the snow beers and drank happily for the 2 great runs.We knew the rain was coming so we went to work fortifying our wall even more. The wind was coming from the opposite direction as before so we had to build up the walls higher and thicker. Around 3 the rain started and we retreated to the tents. Nick went to the onsen to buy more liqueur while Sandy the lazy guy that he is went to sleep. I was just bored. The rain didn't really seem to be stopping so we had to cook in Nick's tent. This was a first for me and I was amazed how hot it got in there. We were going to have an onsen after dinner however the rain just kept getting heavier and heavier. So we called it an early night and went to bed. Day 4The rain just got heavier and heavier all night. Sandy and I were lucky in that we stayed very dry though. Outside the rain was carving deep crevasses in the snow where it poured off the fly. Of all the nights I have spent in the backcountry this was by far the worst rain I have experienced. It was very demoralising. With the sun rising or in our case black turning to grey I got another weather report. It told of more rain in the day. We made the descision to bail on our trip. Sandy and I cleaned up our tent and as it was still dry invited Nick over for a feast of our extra food. We ate an amazing amount of food but still had a ton left. The rain soon let up and we saddly packed up all our gear. We all skied over to the rope tow for the ride out of the bowl. When we got the top of the rope tow the sun came out and the peaks started to emerge. If we went back to camp we could have dried out all our gear but skiing would have been to dangerous. We would have had to wait another day. So we continued on back to the bus station. An end to a pretty good ski trip cut short due to weather.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
23rd April 2005
Day 1After skiing in the Tateyama area last November with Nick we saw the potential of the area and made plans to get back there when it re-opened in April.April 23 rolled around and we made it up to Tateyama station pulling into one of the last remaining parking spots. We geared up and went into the station only to find it packed with tourists. We got a number and unlike November where we were waiting due to weather we were now waiting because of crowds. But an hour later we were boarding the train to the bus station above where we quickly got on a bus. The snow slowly got deeper and deeper until just before Murodo Station we passed one wall which was nearly 20 metres tall.We got ready and then skied down to the camp in really difficult flat light and amazingly fresh powder. I havn't skied a real run with a huge backpack in a long time though. It proved to still be really difficult. Wanting to get some vert we ditched the bags and started skinning up the face which leads towards towards Tsurugidake. A switchback up the skin track I had to pull over as my pinky toe was digging into it's neighbor and was hurting pretty good. Nick got ahead of me and gave me drive to catch up to him. I pretty much broke my own trail up the steep hill as my skins don't like the smooth skin tracks. The snow was really good for skinning though and I was able to climb fairly steeply. The clouds would break every so often and we could catch glimpses of some skiers dropping into a roudy line. Later we found out that it was a guided trip and was being led by the nice guide we had met in November. We soon caught up with a large group skinning up and they had decided to bypass a large ice bulge by booting straight up. We chose to follow. It was fairly straightforward at first however soon we had to cross the ice bulge. They had kicked steps in however the ice was really hard and they were only able to kick steps enough for toes to hold. So we had a nervous boot to the ridge line where we were stopped in a traffic jam as the leader couldn't tell where to go in the thick clouds. While stopped we spotted a Ptarmigan just a few metres away standing on the ridge. Probably waiting for us to go so it could continue on it's way. The weather cleared for a moment and we went on our way up to the hut which stood above 2800 metres. The wind was really blowing and it was cold so we wolfed down our lunch before gearing up for the descent. Our plan was to leave before the large group but just as we were starting to walk to our run they seemed to get in front of us. We managed to skirt them however we all got stopped pretty quick as it was a total white out. It cleared after a few minutes however and we were able to see a rock a ways down the run. We skied as quickly as we could to the rock before again having to stop and wait for the weather to clear a bit. We soon dropped below the clouds however and had a pretty good powdery run back to camp. A good 500-600 metres of vertical. We found a good place to set up camp and as it was still early decided to make the mother of all snow walls. It eventually turned out to be a fortress with walls taller than the tent but it gave us something to do. Setting up the tent Nick secured a corner with his probe pushing it's 3 metres into the snow without touching the ground. Judging by the water/bathroom hut it appeared that there was about 4 metres of snow as our feet were the same height as the roof. There was some discussion after setting up camp about trying the same line we skied in November. It looked really nice. So we set out around 3:30. I set the main skin track and as I was aiming for a high group of bushed tried to make it as steep as possible. Like the earlier run the snow was really good for skinning and we quickly made it to the bush area. This was where Nick and I had decided to starting booting up last year. Nick took over on the skin track and put in 2 more nice steep switchbacks before we decided it was too steep and started booting up. I was ready first so set off up the slope. The snow was really good for hiking and I was able to make really good steps all the way to the top of the chute. We doubled what we were able to ski in November. As I had done most of the work getting up Nick gave me first racks so as soon as the weather cleared enough I set off. The snow was really nice and I made some fun although very defensive turns until I had to stop because I was sinking into the crust. Nick came down after and with his fatter skis was able to go all the way to the bottom. We met back at camp and after organising everything started dinner. Nothing tastes better than spagetti and meat sauce after a hard day in the mountains. Nick had brought a ham along and it tasted really good. That and the JD I had brought put a little fire in our full bellies. As the sun went down the already cool temperature dropped with it so we retired to the "4" man tent at the early hour of 7. Turns out the "4" man tent only fits 2.Day 2During the night the clouds cleared away and the temperature dropped sharply. I was pretty toasty and sleeping soundly however Nick wasn't as comfortable. I've been there many times before. We both didn't think it would get that cold in late April. The inside of the tent went below -5. Going out for a very early morning pee break we both saw that amazing mountain we were going to attempt once the sun rose. There were quite a few ski lines off the long ridge however one stood out from all the rest. It was an amazing line coming directly off the summit. I could even spot it in the evening glow from the moon.Once the sun came up I was happily out of the tent making noise. I found a great way to heat up the ski boots. I filled my water bottles with boiling water and then stuck them in my boots. A few minutes of this and they were toasty. We had a really slow morning and I jokingly said let's try and be out by 8:30. Turned out that we left camp at that time. Just before we left 2 skiers skinned away. 1 of them said to us in english "Do you remember me?" It was one of the big-mountain guys that was skiing in November. We were in with the hardcores. They were going for the same line as us however instead of hiking all the way around and up the ridge like we were going to do they skinned directly up the steep bowl. We left camp and soon broke off from the skin track and cut right across the slope. In hindsite it probably wasn't the best route but things were pretty solid and nothing was coming down. I was able to lay in a nice steep skin track and we gained elevation on our way towards the saddle. Cutting across a steep slope I started sliding on an ice bulge. For me getting across was easy. I just locked down my heals and traversed across. Nick had to take his skis off and boot up. Not the easiest thing to do. On the other side of the ice bulge I continued up to the hut in the saddle soon joining with the hundred or so people walking/skinning up from the bus station. Nick came up a few minutes later and we had a break before contemplating the steep ridge walk ahead. We met a couple Japanese people who regualarly vacation in Canada. They said that they go Heli-skiing 1 or 2 times a year. I can only imagine how much that would cost. Funny thing about the really outdoorsy people in Japan is that almost all of them are filthy rich while most really outdoorsy people in western countries have fairly menial jobs with flexible scedules.But after securing our skis to our bags we started up the icy trail. In the summer I had made a bet with Dan on our 7 day traverse that I could get down this section of trail in 15 minutes. It took me 20 but it was a really fun run down a steep, busy, loose and dusty trail. Now it was icy and solid and instead of being a walk in the park was almost a full scramble with hands needed some of the times. I found it easier than the icy walk the day before as the ice was a little softer and easier to step up but care was needed as a slip would send you for a rake into pointy rocks. We were almost the only ones going up without crampons and Nick said a few times he wish he hadn't left his in the car. I didn't mind so much. But going up we both started contemplainting different routes down. We didn't know how we would be able to get onto our chosen route. There was a nice chute descending down from the main hut at the summit that looked very appealing. We would just have to bypass a few small ice bulges. We slowly made it to the top in the same hour as it says on the map which was pretty good. And after a nice snack in the sun complete with the name that peak game I wondered off to find our route down the mountain. Looking over a cliff I spotted our line and was nearly ecstatic. It was an amazing steep view down the 700 metres to our camp. There were only a few tracks in it as well. I quickly got Nick over to look and we saw the entrance which only involed a little side slipping on some ice. I went first and bypassed the main section following the other tracks. The main face looked icy and I was going to check it out for Nick from the bottom. My route was just as steep and icy though and Nick could hear my edges trying to gain purchase the entire way down. It was a good descent though down to the top of the bowl. I radioed to Nick to start and got my camera ready. He made it look good although I could hear his edges scraping pretty loudly. The powder started just below me and Nick went first letting it really fly. He yelled back to me on the radio to giver and I did. I really tried to get some fun GS style turns on the Shuksans. What an amazing feeling to be skiing nice powder at the very end of April. We finished up the line and made our way back to camp. An amazing run and I think my best ever big mountain line. Back at camp we repacked out bags before skiing over to the rope tow for the short drag to the top of the hill. This rope tow is only open from late April to late June and other than hauling tenters up the hill with there large bags doesn't really seem worth while as a ski hill. But as we were tenters and had very large bags we took full advantage of it. At the top I was able to release my heel and skin without skins all the way back to the bus station. I love my bindings so much. The temperature had regained it's spring time hold and it was amazingly hot. I had to again resort to skinning in shorts. A good feeling.What an amazing trip. So much fun. We skied 3 nice lines and had some good late season powder.I can't wait for Golden Week when Nick, Sandy and I are going into this area for 6 days. Will be an amazing experience.
Backcountry Skiing - Tateyama
27th November 2004
I had been into the Tateyama area 2 times before but they had been in August with Dan for the start of our week long hike and then September by myself to climb Tsurugidake. I have always been amazed at the mountains and wanted to come back in the Spring to ski some of the steep lines.Nick Kowal from Kyoto wanted get some early skiing in however and soon a plan was being hatched to get some early season turns before the Tateyama Alpine route closed at the end of November.Watching web cams and the weather Nick and I planned on the last weekend in November. We would take the bus up from Tateyama Station and camp up high and look for skiable snow Saturday and Sunday. I have always been an optimistic person and was expecting a good time but I didn't think there would be much snow. I thought we would really have to look for it. Nick drove out from Kyoto friday night and arrived at my place just after midnight and we left what seems like minutes later early Saturday morning. I was really surprised when we got there to see many skiers and snowboarders. Many of the skiers were also sporting really big skis. We quickly geared up and with huge over night bags bordering on insanely heavy we hobbled into the station. To our surprise everybody was sitting around going nowhere. The top was closed as they were experiencing extreme winds and heavy snow. Daytrippers were going home and overnighters like us were settling in for a long rest. We passed the time talking to a group of Japanese skiers who were on a guided trip. The guide lived in Hakuba and spoke pretty good english. The skiers were all on huge skis like B3's, Apache Chiefs and Pocket Rockets. They said there was about a metre base and with the new snow it would be pretty good up there. If they let us up that is. I think the huge skis where a bit over kill though.Finally after nearly 5 hours of waiting we were able to board the tram followed by the bus and arrived in the alpine sometime after 2:00 PM. Not really wanting to camp down in the true camping area we followed many overnighters behind a huge hut and dug in out of the wind. Where we camped there was probably 10 tents. We quickly set up and set out for 1 run. Skinning up we aimed for a nice gully just below the cloudline. It was a great run in about 10 cm's of nice dry powder.We got back to our tents just as it was getting dark and settled in for dinner. As it was too cold to just stand around outside we got in the tent. For the first 6 or 7 hours it was quite pleasent in the tent and we had to open up the door to the vestibule to get some fresh air however the temps dropped as the night went on and in the morning is was quite a bit colder. In the tent it was just below zero. Sunday Nov 28 - Up early we couldn't see more than 10 metres but we got up and had breakfast. A white ptarmigan passed just near the limit of our vision probably looking for scraps from campers like us. Slowly the clouds parted revealing blue sky here and there however the clouds never did rise above the 2700-2800 metre level. We packed up and took our bags back to the bus station and then set out to find some fresh tracks. We aimed for the tent area hoping to find some lower skiing below the clouds. Skiing along a narrow ridge we spotted a nice short line dropping into a bowl. We deskinned and I got first tracks. It was beautiful snow. Very light over a really nice and soft base. I was even more surprised at how well my skis cut it up. I'm really happy with them. Nick came down after me loving it just as much as I was. Nick also spotted a white weazel running between the rocks. Not even 5 minutes after we had went down this line 2 or 3 people had already followed us. We skated out of the bowl and were placed at the top of our second line which was about twice as long as the first. Nick got first tracks for this one while I took pictures from the top. I was just getting ready to ski it and a Japanese fellow who had followed us down the last run jumped in front of me and poached my line. Not very good backcountry ethics at all. But all I had to do was traverse over 10 metres or so and I got a great line down to where Nick was standing. We got ready for our 3rd run and skinned towards an interesting gully. It was about 40-45 degrees and we had to boot pack up most of it. But for the parts that I was leading the booting was easy on firm snow. It wasn't that way for Nick. About half way up we decided it was far enough and shoveled out a platform for a rest before skiing down. I had been packing 2 tall cans of beer so we finished off 1 of them had a snack and then got ready to ski the line. Nick went first and had a great run while I took pictures from above. He waited at the bottom and then it was my turn. In the centre of the gully the snow was probably 10-20cm's deep. It was so nice.Our 4th run was a nice untracked bowl above the tent area which consisted of the same beautiful powder.Realizing that even though it would be cool to stay another day we had to get back to the bus station for the ride out.What a trip.Great skiing in the early season. We are already making plans to come back in early April when the route opens up again to ski some of the more roudy lines we couldn't see.
No comments:
Post a Comment