first track - where we go

Mt. Sanbon-yaridake (三本槍岳（さんぼんやりだけ）) is a mountain with 1917 m high and places at the boarder of Fukushima and Tochigi Prefectures.

The blue sky welcomed us and it was a very nice trekking day with beautiful trail between mountains.

Walking on the trail with Mt. Chausu-dake (茶臼岳) on our left. Mt. Chausu-dake can be more easily accessed by the Nasu ropeway and walking less than one hour.(see the trail map here)

Nasu ropeway

Nasudake, Nasucho Yumoto, Nasu-gun, Tochigi prefecture, 325-0301, Japan
Nasu ropeway

We passed through the col called Mineno-chaya where is famous for the strong wind. It is always so, the wind around here is very strong and cold. You need to prepare your wear protection against cold.

After approximately two hours of hiking, we reached to the top of Mt. Sanbon-yaridake.

We dropped by Mt. Asahidake.

After 9:00 am, a number of hikers increased, so it's better to start at early morning.

Around Mt. Chausudake, you can hear the sound very similar to the jet airplane flying just over you. It's a kind of small explosion sound, because Mt. Chausudake is a volcanic mountain.

Kakinotane（柿の種）is a common Japanese snack. It tastes like a senbei (soy source flavored rice crisps), but more small. It is said that the figure is like a seed of a fruits. There are some products with different tast and the most common one is with peanuts.

"Guinomi"(ぐい呑) or "Ochoko"(おちょこ) is a generic term for the flask and cups used to serve Japanese sake. Ochoko in the shape of Mt. Fuji is good for a souvenir from Japan.

杯招福杯おちょこ富士山日本製金透き 65ml

Mt. Karamats (唐松岳)
Mt. Karamatsu (Karamatsu-dake in Japanese) is in the Japanese Alps, and 2,696m high at its peak located in Nagano Prefecture. You can access to the mountain via Happo-one snow resort, which is one of the famous snow resort in Hakuba village.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E6%9D%BE%E5%B2%B3

Hakuba Happo-one
Hakuba Alpine Resort

Hiking information
http://www.yamakei-online.com/yk_map/?latlon=36.69142661176844,137.78474669603756&zoom=14

Trail is still covered by a few meters of snow, so you certainly need to prepare the trekking gears for winter season such as axes and climbing irons. Climbing is started from the top of the Hakuba Happo-one snow resort. At this time, we didn't reach to the top of Mt. Karamatsu, because of the time shortage.

Japan Meteorological Agency have announced that the El Niño event, which had persisted since boreal summer 2014, is likely to have ended in spring 2016. 2015-2016 winter season in Japan have been affected a lot by this El Niño event.

Shorter snow season, less snow overall, late opening and early closing at Ski resorts... But sometimes a contradiction happens such like strong snowstorms. It seems more difficult to predict and avoid an avalanche for skiers, snowboarders, and mountain climbers.

Many of the ski areas in Niigata Pref. still open in April with a dozen feet of snow on the ground in a usual season and have a snow-park with huge size of kickers and jib items, but not in this season. There remains a few ski resorts that still open in this condition, Kagura was one of them. Kagura ski resort is one of the largest combined ski resort in Niigata Pref.

They have brought in the gate system for the backcountry skiers and snowboarders from the beginning of 2015-2016 season. The users must show a document written down everything about their plans and routes to the patrol. Then you have to check your avalanche beacon functioning well.

After checking everything was OK, well prepared, then you can come into the gate, and start hiking.

Also, you need to have a phone call to the patrol office after you get back safely to the base. It seems pretty much for an expert, however, it is very good for a beginner to prepare their stuff well.

Kagura Mitsumata Ski Resrort
Address: Mitsumata, Yuzawa, Minamiuonuma District, Niigata Prefecture, 949-6211, Japan
http://www.princehotels.com/en/ski/mtnaeba/index.html
http://www.snowjapan.com/japan-ski-resorts/niigata/yuzawa/kagura
Open Until: End of May in usual

Yuzawa Town
http://www.e-yuzawa.gr.jp/english/

Snow report on 2th March, 2016 from Okutadami-Maruyama Snow Resort, Niigata Japan. The resort is closed during midwinter and re-opend in the middle of March.

This 32.4km-long-drippy-rock-surface-tunnel leading to Okutadami-Maruyama snow resort is called "Silver Line". The Okutadami dam is a hydroelectric power generation purpose dam and was built in 1960s. The 32.4 km-long tunnel was for the purpose of construction work. The snow resort is located in the upper part of the dam.

The resort takes advantages of large amount of snowfall, it usually has a big half-pipe and over 10m kickers. Due to record-breaking warm winter, there are no half-pipe in this spring season.

The depth of snow is only 3m though it is over 5m on an average year.

Okutadami-Maruyama: http://www.okutadami.co.jp/ski/
Snow forecast: http://ja.snow-forecast.com/resorts/OkutadamiMaruyama/6day/mid
Snow info: http://www.snowjapan.com/japan-ski-resorts/niigata/uonuma/okutadami-maruyama

Snow report on 18th February, 2016 from Kagura-Mitsumata Snow Resort, Niigata, Japan. Kagura is a three-in-one ski resort that incorporates the areas of Kagura, Mitsumata and Tashiro, lying next to the Naeba Snow Resort. These joint resorts provide a wide variety of ski courses, from easy family slopes to challenging advanced-level.

Mt. Naeba (in English)
Kagura Snow Resort (in Japanese)

No clouds and clearly fine this morning. Mt.Tanigawa, on the border of Gunma Pref. and Niigata Pref., can be seen from Kan-etsu Express Way. Great beauty!

Yuzawa area had fairly deep fresh snow during the night. The road condition was icy.

No clouds, amazing clear blue sky!

30 cm over fresh snow covered over backcountry area. Only 30 min hike from the Kagura Gate, introduced from 2014-2015 season at the top of the 5 romance lift, got to the top of Nakaone (中尾根). South face received strong sunlight and made sun crusts in a short time.

Kagura area used to be much quieter than Naeba, before the powder hunting became very popular in Japan. Now, Kagura is the gold standard of "sidecountry", "backcountry", and the powder hunting. After a long interval, we visited Kagura to test our new gears. Kagura area impound massive snow in usual season, but 2-3 meter lower in this season. Uncommon clear view from the restaurant at the top of the Kagura gondola.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation is quite strong in this winter. It causes very warm atmosphere around Japan. North Japan is also no exception. Shiny this morning with a few cm of fresh snow on the ground from yesterday. Light winds and the temperature is sitting at -5 degrees. East side slope face of Nishidaiten （西大巓） was good condition with snow monsters!