Deep snow, and donating

Wow. Today was deep. Just ridiculously, absurdly deep.

Though as good a day as we had on the mountain, it’s crazy to know that so many people close to us are dealing with so much loss. So before I get into our day, here’s a link about donating to the relief efforts in Japan. If you can contribute, the Japanese can use the help.

www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-support-japan-earthquake-response

As for our wellbeing, there’s a lot of conflicting news reports about the severity of the nuclear threats and whether those threats will increase or decrease. The one consensus seems to be that we remain in a fairly safe spot in Japan. Tom and I have talked about our options, and barring some major development, we plan to stay here until Monday, as scheduled.

If today was any indication, we’ll have plenty of snow to enjoy in the next couple of days. We woke this morning to heavy snow falling, but only a dusting had accumulated on the ground. Happo One, on the other hand, had picked up a massive amount of snow. More than a foot at the higher elevations, and coming down hard throughout the day. A big group of us — Tom, Jon, Dan, Katja, Lachlan, Kirsti and myself — spent the morning up high in the deep snow. After yet another bakery lunch (becoming a daily stop), we moved down to the trees on the lower mountain. Here are some photographic highlights from the day: 

 Tom

 Jon

 Katja

 Lachlan

 Kirsti

 Tom again

 Jon again

 More Jon

 Jon kept finding the really deep snow today

Dan looks for a soft landing. He found one.