Apparently Hakuba is the hot place to ski this winter: besides the ski celebrities that are Tommy, Brian and I, we’re sharing a hostel with a crew from Unofficial Squaw, have heard that Jeremy Jones is in the area filming a sequel to “Deeper,” and heard that another TGR group is in town. All for good reason. Bluebird skies today enticed us to hike above the top lift at Happo One, where we saw the full extent of the Japanese Alps. Massive mountains, huge lines, big bowls — who says Japan only has tree skiing?
No idea who this guy is, but he picked a picturesque line to ski.
Yep, those are mountains. Big ones. (Tommy's pose no doubt inspired by one Mr. Christopher Small.)
We skipped the longer tour, but still managed to ski a super long run through wide bowls.
Yeah, that was fun.
An Aussie checks out the view from below.
Unfortunately, we missed the “easy” way back to the resort and ended up poling our way back along a street for what seemed like an hour (since none of us have a watch, we’re a little sketchy on actual times).
Taking the long way home.
After a long, leisurely lunch and more canned coffee, we went back to the same spot. A Finnish guy met us at the top and tagged along for the run. With his wife on a business trip in Tokyo, he had escaped to Happo for one ski day. This time we found the “easy” way back — which turned out to be a steep boot pack. Not easy, by any means, but at least shorter than our first attempt.
The moon came out for the bottom of the second run.
Tomorrow we’ll put in a half day or so and then take off for a long weekend in Tokyo and Kyoto for some Japanese (non-ski) culture.
