February 23, 2011

Taking in the scenery

Blue skies and warm temps all week have made for beautiful days but, combined with a lack of new snow, have made for less than ideal backcountry conditions. Our ventures into the Happo backcountry keep landing us atop crusty slopes. We’ve therefore largely limited ourselves to skiing ridgelines to avoid avy danger in the sun-baked bowls (watched one wet slide come down a chute around midday today) and scoping out lines for when better conditions return. All in all, that means no great ski photos, but I have snapped some scenery shots of the Japanese Alps.





 Not our tracks on that slope


 That long, flat peak has several ski tracks on it -- we're guessing from TGR

Start of the hike out after skiing the north face of Happo

2 comments:

  1. Too bad about the less than ideal ski conditions; however, just being outdoors in that gorgeous scenery has to be pretty fantastic. Are the trails served by lifts in better condition? If so, are they more my speed and therefore of no interest to you? Somehow I think you'll make the most of whatever Mother Nature sends your way.

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  2. yeah, no real complaints about being able to ski every day. the in-bounds stuff is fine; we'll usually make a few runs there in addition to poking around the backcountry.

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