Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

After that first tour the buzz was on. Jer, my main touring partner, was in great form and willing to go anytime throughout the season. Off we went to hit some chutes in early January off of the back of Happo-one. That day, 40 minutes into the tour we knew we weren't going to beat the wind. Unreal wind saw us almost getting frostbitten. So we changed plans and skied an area named Garagara-zawa and down its steepest section. Unreal powder conditions and stable snow: a great run. And upon getting down, we knew that we were going up again.

It was my turn now.  I was itching, but I knew that I had to be careful and stay on my spine in order to avoid the start zone and lots of slough. One turn, two turns, three turns, I let the big fat skis run into the deepest lightest snow of the season. Into my gully and a quick look back at speed showed no slough or sliding. Down I went until the crux came — hmm, an air over the rocks or do a 50 meter straight-line? After a quick stop, I opted for the straight-line. One jump turn to let the slough run, I waited to let it go, then dove in. I only skied for four or five seconds, but hit Mach speed going well over 80 km/h. The next turns were a blur of ecstasy and screaming. I caught up with Jer waiting in the safe zone and we were pumped up as much as two people could ever be. High-fives, pole taps and just talking gibberish, we got everything we could ever have wanted out of our lines. We both thought and talked about what section we wanted next and how we would ski it again but, alas, Mother Nature would not give us good conditions at The Big Triangle again this season. That’s OK, though; she’s waiting for us for next year.

After more and more tours with a week off to let the wife have a go, I was back at it with some core SJ crew. What a fark up day this was. First, Goryu-Toomi Ski Resort shut down the gondola, and then trying to push onto The Big Triangle when it was loaded was just silly. Although we were never in danger on the hard ridge or in the low angle powder, the idea to push onto The Big Triangle wasn't that smart. Today’s Plan A was not working out. Always have a few plans in your head, at the very least a Plan A, B, and C.

When checking the snow, I accidentally dropped Dizzy's shovel handle down the slope. My pit didn't show much other than a loaded slope that seemed safe. I decided that I just wasn't worth the chance. I stayed roped up and decided to cut a north-west facing mellower slope 30 meters skier's left of The Big Triangle. One second into the cut, the whole slope released and ran fast. The rope held me. At that point, plan C was in full effect: we needed to find a west-facing lower angle slope further down the ridge. A bit of a traverse on the hard ridge, and we found our little slope.

Once safely down, I reflected that while I knew it was safe to be where we were, my choice of The Big Triangle was not smart. I should've been content with the nice meadow bowl skiing that was well-traveled instead of the steep exposed line we'd been on that feed onto the meadow.

Feeling bad about the last tour the week before, pretty much the same SJ crew plus Jer got together to tour behind Tsugaike and explore a bit. I'd done this tour a few times before and I really liked it. The plan was to dig a pit and work as a team.

Everything went smooth with Dizzy getting his hands dirty ski cutting the slope then digging a pit to check the snow. As the area really had no safe zone to dig the pit, we kept Dizzy connected to a rope. The pit held to a medium 5 if I remember correct, but it was only a small layer on top releasing.

After a small traverse, we were climbing again. Jer became our trailbreaker and did a great job of making fast time skinning up. Fubuki was walking in these huge snowshoes courtesy of Jamesbob that were just not staying on. Eventually, some extra straps came out of bags and the shoes stayed on.

The next run down was through what I think is the best tree run in Hakuba. Fifteen hundred vertical feet of cliffs, rocks, steeps and meadows. Everyone had a blast with some saying that there would definitely be coming back the next day. Great little tour with a great team. Since then, the team has unfortunately seen two members leave Japan. Too bad, really, cause that was a super sick fun team to tour with.

With my good friend Fubuki leaving Japan to move onto his next journey, I thought we should do one last tour together. On a picture perfect day, we headed up the Happo-One Ridge. We made such good time up the ridge that we would be able to get two runs down a mini south face before moving onto Oshidashi. Nothing extreme, just a classic day with prefect weather, good snow and great banter. Good spring snow on the south, and nice powder on the north: a perfect send off. On the walk back to the car, we just chatted and farted around. No hitching a ride, we just enjoyed the weather and the one-hour walk back to the car.

In come the pros. Possibly the highlight of the season was when Wink Inc/Rush HD TV showed up for 10 days to film a TV show and possibly some segments for their next movie. Time off of work was taken, but the weather wasn't cooperating at all. Hiking into spring lines and crashing rental cars all week, things were a mess until that prefect Friday. On Wednesday and Thursday, it had snowed 40 to 50 cms. The forecast called for clear weather Friday, which meant that Friday would be the day to film. On Friday, up early, with shuttles organized, we were out the door and on an early lift.

Cameramen set up on the ridge near the top quad and then we ripped The Mix for all it was worth. We got four runs in that day. Four runs on the terrain that people look at and dream about when they come to Happo. Charging for the Camera, hucking airs and billy-goating down rocks; what a crew. The day was so good that even when the sun went down and the filming stopped, we just kept riding perfect stable pow lines. That night saw a huge party with hair hacked off, mullets made and touring plans solidified.

The next day, I got to take Kina Picket and Will Burkes on a 2-hour tour behind Goryu/47 into some of the steepest terrain in Hakuba. There were uttered claims of the steepest treed area some had ever skied and that made me smile. Listening to your hero’s talk about how stoked they are to ski your home terrian is a felling that I can’t discribe. We got to the line and waited for the camermen to say go. We got the call and dropped in. It was steep, deep stable snow, so stable that to our shock it didn't even slough. The snow was over the head blower powder. Ripped at speeds only pros can really do. We grouped up in the safe zone and started the second half of the line. Not as steep as the upper section at a mellow 30 degrees, but it was just as fun. There were big walls of snow to throw huge cutback-like turns on. By the time I stopped to re-group I was grinning ear to ear. What a line. We end up at the Hakuba 47 cafés. Beers, coffee and water were taken in with our shuttle driver. The TV show stress was now over, the work was now done; time to just relax and let go.

Nipped by Goryu-Toomi again. One of my old touring partners decided to heck with living in the real world I'm coming back to Japan. So when Dan rocked in, we had a plan to rock Goryu. We would ski the North faces, a two hour’s climb away great plan but you need tickets. After getting on the lift, we realized that Dan didn't have any points on his ticket. We went up thinking that he would wait at the bottom but the liftie after a short chat with Dan let him up the lift.

With no phone or way to contact each other, we waited. Two hours passed, and then finally we got together. We gave up on Hakuba 47 and decided to head to Norikura. If we were only going to get one run it might as well be a sick one, right?

What a slog we were in for. We decided to try a new route up and boy that was a big mistake. Over two hours of slogging up through punchy snow. After almost giving up three times, we made it and we were right on top of our line. Our efforts weren’t for nothing though: perfect powder all the way down, so perfect that we forget about the day's screw-ups and were just super stoked that we got it right after all.

With snow starting to fall we committed to skiing trees on the same aspect the next day. The next day produced some of the nicest lift accessed tree skiing of the season.

With work finished and the forecasted rain coming up fast, a little tour was put together with Dan. We would try to ski the north faces of Norikura and then ski the north faces chutes of Tenguparra. Once again, the wind beat me this season. We gave up on the Norikura portion of the trip. We instead did a 1 km traverse to ski some rolling meadow terrain and then ski the planned Tengu chutes.

We dug a pit and found a 4 meter base of snow. The pit also told us that the layers in the pack were quite stable, a good sign for the steep chutes. The meadow was the prefect boot-deep powder. Knowing that this day could be the last powder day in the BC, we milked every turn right to the bottom. We put skins on and back to the top of Tenguparra via the trees. The first half of the slog was so easy.

We stopped and ate lunch in a little cove of trees before heading up into the steeps. Once at the top I roped up to check the snow with a quick pit. Others had already skied part of the slope and I got the same results as the pit before, so I was confident in the slope stability.

We chose to ski the slope safe, making 20 turns max before finding a safe zone. A bit of slough but prefect snow nonetheless. Down the bottom and out the nice run-out to the final skin up to our favorite Norikura trees.

The trees were again prefect with many drops and hitting the meadow line perfectly for maximum vertical. The run-out back to the car was very slow but we didn't care. Three great lines, home-made pizza and beer for dinner; it was the prefect day.

The next day we had no expectations. Dan, Will AKA Altaboy, figured that rain had fallen up high but it had not. When we got to Happo-One, we saw that there was powder everywhere. We lapped up as much of the soft stuff inbounds as we could, a great unexpected day with the dam airs being about as good as they can be. We then decided to head up and check out how well some of the bigger lines were holding up. If the snow was crap we would come back, if it was stable we would run a long northeast facing line. The snow was stable but a bit crusty. I was on crazy fat skis that had no problem with the snow. I broke through and rode the snow like it was soft powder. High-speed nice turns; I had a lot of fun.

All that came crashing to a halt when Willhurt himself badly on the easiest part of the run. The last little section where the snow was sticky grabbed Will’s leg and decided to try to destroy his hips and knees. Our goal was to ski the line and catch the bus back after a beer. We would instead be forced to walk our friend out for 2 or 3 kms and hope that he could make it at least to a safe-ish zone. This was the one day we had packed light and had only our simple resort packs on; we didn't have our first aid gear or other gear to secure his leg with. I was really scared that he wouldn't make it out but he did fine in the end. I know he was in horrible pain but there just wasn't much that we could do. Another lesson re-learned: whatever can happen in the back country, will happen and you’d better be prepared for it.

After having such stable snow the day before and the rain still holding off for a few more hours, Dan and I decide to try and ski The Mix.

We raced out and got up onto our line. Unfortunately the weather started to warm up fast and by the time I started digging a pit to check for snow things were not looking good for east facing slopes. My pit failed on a medium 1 shovel shear test. That failure was enough for me to get off the slope and look for a mellower northwest facing slope to ski.

As we already had a slope in mind for plan B; off we went. We got prefect shin-deep snow. It wasn’t heavy; it wasn’t light, but just good enough to still be called powder. Skiing this 35 to 38 degree slope for over a km was pretty nice. After getting to bottom I said goodbye to The Mix for the season. The 10 runs she gave me during the season were sick but the coming rain was going to hurt her. I can't take a bad run in The Mix it would just taint my feelings toward her. Seven months of waiting will bring her back to life and the way she should be, ready to be ridden again, so I’ll wait.

After waiting for a week for the rain to stop Dan and I decided to get off of our butts. We would go up Happo Ridge even if we had to ski back down the way that we climbed up. We had a bit of a late start, but we managed to get to the bottom of the top chair lift by 10:30. We got there just in time to watch them close the chair for the day.

We debated and in the end just started hiking from there. We didn't set a crazy pace but we did well. Within 45 minutes we had passed a group of snowboarders hiking up who had caught the last chair. I was stoked to pass them and, in all, our one-hour time to the third pile of rocks on Happo Ridge was good enough for me.

After checking the snow we saw that the snow was actually saturated but still stable. It was a very funny snow pack, really. The snow pack was saturated but you would only penetrate 2 to 3 cms into it. After ripping down the upper south face we committed to skiing the bigger north-facing line. We had a bit of lunch and watched a guided group ski down, and then down we went. The snow was like spring butter.

We both had a blast. We sat at the restaurants and small deck at the base of Hakuba 47, which had a great view of our line, we drank 2 coronas while waiting for the bus. Nothing better than having a drink and looking up at your line.