Any of you remember my Hakuba Now report of April 1st, 2002 that
reported 30cms of fresh in the alpine? Well that was a cruel hoax I know, but
it was actually close to being true this year as on a backcountry jaunt April
1st this year we were carving lines into 20cms of great spring pow that fell
the day before and continued to fall that night in the Hakuba Alpine. No Joke!
Spring freshies on Happo One
Photo by James Rob
It was a great April Fools - the weather was fine, temps’ cool and
freshies! The snow was wind scoured at the top and sweet for most of the way,
with the middle 400 meters of vert’ spring powder giving way to smooth buda’
at the bottom. We hiked up Happo One to Daisan cairn and dropped in on the
North face before two other nearby groups had the chance. It is so sweet to get
first tracks in fresh snow - and even more so when it is April. I stopped short
of dropping straight into the main bowl to dig a quick pit to get a final
picture of the snow pack. I knew that this would mean I would probably lose my
chance at first tracks for the rest of the valley but knowing the weather
history of the past week, and the tragic history of the valley, I felt it was
best to check before leaping. What I found (any one uninterested in technical
terms can skip the next two sentences!) was 15cms of fist~4 finger hardness,
mixed decomposing and new crystals over a knife hard, melt freeze crust that
was over laying a thin layer of very low density facets that produced an easy
compression test. But the alarms didn’t really start sounding until I looked
a bit deeper, as 35cms down was another faceting layer or possibly an old surface
hoar layer over pencil hard melt freeze crystals that produced two
consecutive moderate compressions.
What did all this tell me? Well, what it did do was to reconfirm my thoughts
that the stability of the surface snow was considerable ~ high hazard and
precautions needed to be taken to descend and get out of the valley safely. I
felt confident that our party of three was within our limitations to do this,
so the decision was made to continue rather than turn back (which I would have
done if I had felt we were at too great a risk and have done many times
before.) It was also very impressive for us to see striated facets (perfectly
square and angled crystals of snow like sugar crystals that are very poor
bonding, fragile forms that are weak layers in the snow pack and often
associated with slab avalanches) that were so perfect in April, showing us that
even in spring we can be fooled by the surface appearance of snow and must take
steps to locate these dangers. (I can’t begin to explain any of this in
detail to you in this article, so if you are baffled with some of this jargon
and often find yourself outside of ski hill boundaries, get with the programme
and enroll in an avi. awareness course!)
Well the mountain didn’t pull the wool over our eyes this April Fools, and
we even managed to get in before one of the other parties after warning them to
play it safe. They decided to let us go first. So we rode one at a time into
the pristine bowl - savoring every turn and making sure to check over our
shoulders occasionally for possible slides, and frequently regrouping on the
safe ridge to our left. I had a couple of good spills as the snow conditions
were variable between soft pow in the center and breakable wind crust at the
edges of the valley that caught me off guard a couple of times. Or maybe it was
just that it was my first day on tele’ stix for close to 3 months!
Either way, it was a great day of thrills, spills and airs, and definitely a
great day to make a fool of yourself.
I woke the next day a little sluggish as my mountain home was draped in a
dense fog and I had heard it raining at 6:00 when my alarm went off. I had
planned to set out on an over-nighter that day with a buddy, but my lethargy
and the foul weather brought me to the conclusion that my warm bed was a far
better option. To my amazement when I woke again at 8:30 the rain had turned to
snow and the fog was thinning. I was still fairly lethargic as the season had
been hectic and I was in holiday mode. I called Mick at 9:00 and we decided
that we would meet at Happo at 10:00 and just do a day hike and skip the
overnighter. Not entirely a bad call, but we were kicking ourselves the next
day when the uncertain window of weather panned out to be just what we would
have needed. But we were without much regret as we made some great turns in the
15cms of new snow overnight. It would seem that the rain in the valley was
great snow up above 1000 meters.
Mick getting ready to drop in
Photo by Dave Enright
So with our slow pace to the day we headed up Happo and rose above the
valley fog near the top of the ski hill. As I was getting my pack ready for the
climb I came to the realization that I had forgotten my beacon on the dash of
the car. Well it was a leg burner of a board from top to bottom to go pick it
up through all sorts of conditions - fresh, ice, groomed, bumps and mush at the
bottom! Grabbed my beacon and made it back up to the top around 11:00. It was
just one of those mornings that fortunately got much better as the day went on.
After hiking for an hour and a bit up the ridge, we dropped into one of those
sweet North facers that were untracked and virtually untouched by the strong
winds of the night prior and untouched by riders that day - even though it was
12:30 by the time we dropped. Amazing!
We descended 300 meters vert’ and then traversed over the ridge to have
lunch looking out over the magnificent North Alps of Hakuba before entering
into our next untracked chute that enters into the great expanse of the bowl
below that has become so familiar over the last 10 years. Familiar, yes - but
never tedious. This time was no exception. A steep entrance into 15~20cms of
wind loaded, spring powder that we expected might sluff. Mick aired into the
chute carving strong turns that gradually grew to huge wide open Super G turns
in the guts of the bowl as I videoed from the ridge. I dropped into the same
chute and ended up cutting a small slide of the surface snow (even though I was
second in) that was not hard to ride off to the side of and continued down to
what was a spec of a figure at the bottom where he waited. We rode out the
summer service road at the bottom after crossing the fast flowing Karamatsu
River and were back and in the onsen by 4:30. Another fine day of riding done.
The author hard at work in foolish amounts of
Spring pow
Photo by James Rob
Unfortunately, not every day out in the mountains has a happy ending and
Friday the 9th of April was one of those days. It would seem that the deeply
faceted layers that I had found down 15cms and 35cms, combined with new load
from snow the night before and warming temperatures that day may have been the
culprits in a size 2 avalanche, 15~45cm crown fracture that ran about 400
meters in length. It took the life of one skier that afternoon.
Two skiers had started up the Happo Ridge at 9:00 and reached Mt.
Karamatsudake at noon. They both dropped into different chutes off the North
face of Karamatsu not watching each others lines and thus the survivor did not
see his partner get carried away in the moderate sized slide, and once at the
bottom did not know where his partner was. The remaining partner called the
police much later that afternoon when his friend failed to come down. The
police helicopter found the victim the following day with his arm and ski
protruding from the snow. This makes me so sad.... if his partner had been
watching, he would have been able to locate and dig him out in just minutes.
Instead, the victim asphyxiated in his own carbon dioxide no more than 40~50cms
under the surface of the heavy spring snow that would have set up around him
like cement - making it near to impossible for him to struggle out.
But the season is not over, nor the chance of more spring
squalls. Therefore there is still the chance for more surface
avalanches and chance of even more unpredictable and deadly ground avalanches.
So even though spring seems to signify open season in the backcountry, do
please be careful out there and think before you drop in about a multiple of
things; weather (today and past), snow observations (snow pack and visible
slides), terrain (steepness, shape and escape routes), partners (who are they?
experience? ability?). And do you have the equipment to get yourselves
out of a bad situation (avalanche, forced overnight, injury, cliff rescue).
Have fun and play it safe.
As this article goes online, I will have already headed up Fuji-san with a
few hand selected crew. It will have been a great day trip from the Yamanashi
side and I will tell you all about it soon. Hopefully we will have got the
window of weather that we will need for the trip. Then after that we will have
been up to Tateyama on the weekends of the 24th, 25th and May 3rd, 4th and 5th
for some more high alpine turns with clients. These trips were all successes
last year with end of the season freshies for one and great weather for the
other - and big smiles all round.
Hiking the ridge to Tateyama
Oyama
Photo by Steve
Tateyama is a great place for late season touring, with great lines in every
direction - but if weather should get foul it is a very big expanse of alpine
and is easy to go down a multiple of drainages that lead you to nowhere you
want to go. This year a few goals are Oyama 3003 meters, Dragon King Mountain
and Devil’s Peak to continue these long lines down to Kurobe Lake.
Hopefully I’ll see you out there enjoying end of the season turns in
Japan’s spectacular mountains.
Peace,
Dave Enright
Director/Chief Guide
Evergreen Outdoor
Center
Hakuba, Nagano, Japan
