montoya

well, it's been a looong time since last posted here. we are still getting out there, hope to have a long good season. here are some pics from this weekend around kagura:

samurai, it's not exactly in the deep wilderness. on the weekends that area probably sees +100 people up there. Can you imagine what it'd be like if everyone dug a pit and left it open?

my two cents: it was not fun cleaning up that pit on Sunday, took us 15 minutes among 3 people. please use more common sense next time.

SnowConnection, it's alittle to the west of your center mark. This photo shows the overall location better. You can see the top of the #5 Romance lift to the right of the picture, just behind the group of people about to huck off the cornice there.

Quote: Originally posted by tsondaboy: There was a pretty nasty 5 cm hoar layer between 2 ice layers that collapsed. Do you mean depth hoar or buried surface hoar? I usually don't see that much surface hoar up on the top of the South face of Nakaone, usually it gets either blown off by the wind or melts from the sun.

for the one or two other people I know on here that are hiking in the area around Kagura, there was a good-sized slide on the South face (towards Tashiro-side) about 50-70 meters above the #5 Kagura Romance lift. A friend saw it go off on Saturday afternoon, said nobody was involved. Looks like a cornice dropped and triggered it naturally: Looks like the exact same place as in the January slide: http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/5/128.html When Kagura runs the #5 Kagura Romance lift (this year on March 3), this area gets heavy traffic. Thi

the slide at Kagura on Jan 20/21 that I posted about (Karagamine course) was on a slope probably around 25 degrees. everyone was surprised it went, but man it's scary stuff when you have buried surface hoar beneath you. Sat this weekend (Feb 16) is going to be a blue-bird day in Yuzawa, lots of deep fresh powder - but with a thick rain-crust underneath all that. Let's hope nothing goes sideways.

From this article it seems like there was a depth hoar layer down at 40cm: http://www.toonippo.co.jp/news_too/nto2007/20070215220951.asp this article has the head guide mentioning the slope that slid was around 20 degrees. if true, that's pretty freaking scary: http://www.toonippo.co.jp/news_too/nto2007/20070215130421.asp

Looks like lots of snow this Friday, but seems pretty windy: http://weather.yahoo.co.jp/weather/jp/15/5420/15461/9496211.html if you see the wind at Mitsumata at 2 m/s, chances are they're running the Kagura quad at reduced speed. 3 m/s, hmmm might not be running at all. 4 m/s, forget about it...

some of the more detailed articles: http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0214/TKY200702140301.html http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070214-00000151-mai-soci

24 people total: 18 paying customers 5 guides 1 onsen employee

2 dead, 1 missing, from guided group of 24: http://dailynews.yahoo.co.jp/fc/domestic/mountain_accidents/

Mantas at a minimum I'd go through some books, there are some popular titles listed in this thread: http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/5/114.html#000001 I usually reread Tremper's book before the start of the season. Good stuff.

I really wouldn't recommend that area to beginners. In general it's steeper, there are lots of terrain traps, it's almost all south-facing and can get really baked. Also this year the creek at the valley bottom has lots of holes (+2m deep) meaning you can't ride the traverse out, you have to climb back out at some point.

where to start? if you were their client that day, they had planned to bring you down a red-flag slope with a gully terrain trap at the bottom. while you are waiting at the top, the 2nd guide causes an avie (and later says it's a slope-cut). the lead guide then cuts the slope over him 2x causing more debris to fall, then later says it was all according to plan. next time you as their client get caught in a slide there, none of the locals will be that quick to help out since we have already been told beforehand they don't need our assistance. I asked around, and there's a rumour that th

just got back from kagura, there's at least 2cm-4cm sun-crust on all south faces, and exposed north and east faces. Some places it's like ice. If you're hiking up this weekend I'd be very wary of the steeper slopes. Although different regions, read the Hakuba Now! report, their avie forecast seems applicable for the Yuzawa area during this storm cycle.

After Wadagoya-lodge was created and before the Kagura ski-resort was created (I don't know the years). The guy running Wadagoya is pretty friendly, he'll tell you all about the history if you ask. It's also an interesting experience to stay there overnight, apparently its haunted by a few ghosts. Anyway, tsondaboy is on his way, but needs to complete the first and last stages also if he's going to call himself yama-skier-tough.

a long long time ago, the original yama-ski route at kagura started from the bottom of the mitsumata parking lot. it continued up along the gondola course to Wadagoya-Lodge. That was day 1. Day 2 you'd climb what we now call the main gerende course at Kagura, then up to Kagura-Mine or Gangamine. the yama-skiers back then were tough, they didn't need luxuries such as ropeways, lifts, etc

went through 2-3 cameras before settling on this: OptioW20 http://www.digital.pentax.co.jp/ja/compact/optio-w20/feature.html good color, ok video, water-proof down to 1.5 meters meaning it works no problem on the snow. amazon.co.jp has good prices.

just out of curiosity, what makes you think the locals up there are so happy to give up the goods on their hard-earned stashes, to some vacationer from out of the country they have never met?

If you google "right of way" and "ski area", you'll find endless variations of this: People ahead of you have the right of way. It is your responsibility to avoid them. Sounds pretty straightforward to me. If it's too crowded find another resort or pick another day.

nope, too busy with work so no data this week. best bet is to follow the weather reports on sj.com, Yahoo! and WeatherNews, and check the live-cams for Naeba, etc.

looking thru my notes this is what I have for that week: 16th clear skies/extensive surface hoar 17th fog (according to a friend) 18th fog -> snow (according to a friend) 19th 30-40cm new snow I don't think there was any rain during this particular cycle. I'm thinking that there was some melt from the fog/greenhouse effect on the 17th and 18th. this could account for the crust we found on the 20th beneath the new snow.

not that I can remember.. if you have any pics, would be interested to see.

I haven't heard of any recent avie fatalaties at Kagura. However, I think 2 years ago, someone died on the winding genzan-course from Mitsumata down to the parking lot, he hucked off the course-side, landed upside down and suffocated in deep snow. If you want to go way back in time, there are the 4 yama-skiers who I think 50 years ago (before the Kagura ski-resort was created) skied down Bosawa in Jan or Feb, couldn't make it back up and died of exposure in a blizzard. Quote: Originally posted by SerreChe: The 3rd one looks pretty fluid. Kagura was warm on that w/e, looks