2010 01 10 - 11: YomogiToge : 2 days Snow Camping / Splitboarding:
Chris, Rob and myself planned to go for a winter hiking/camping/boarding trip in the Yuzawa area. We went to one of my usual favs, YomogiToge. We had the place to ourselves as usual but the approach was deep and tough. We hiked 7-8 hours before we could make it to our camp site. Thanks to Chris for helping carry so much of the load and to Rob for braving the elements and being our Chef cook in the mountains. I put a more detailed trip report in the forum section for those interested. The link is: http://japanpeuf.50.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=63 .
2010 02 20: Kita Shamen : 1st day on new ''old'' Venture:
Will Update Later. Click on above link for pictures.
2010 03 28: YomogiToge : Splitboarding:
With George and Izumi-chan. Gave YomogiToge yet another try. Conditions were foul up top with almost no visibility and strong winds. We still managed to summit despite the horrible conditions. On the way down the vis was so bad that we were not 100% sure as to where we were. Once we reached the tree line, the visibility got better and we got into a nice open gully I had wanted to do for a while. Snow was powder on crust up top and and heavy powder lower down. While heading back, I fell into a small creek as the snow bridge gave way under my weight (I had passed over the same bridge on the way up without any problems). Thankfully the water was not deep and I got out of it fairly quickly. As a bonus, we came upon a mother and calf kamoshika. A very nice and fun trip despite the challenging conditions.