Backcountry skiing (100eight) 2:30:00 [2] 10.5 km (14:17 / km) +1025m 9:36 / km
Transfer day to Nozawa so a shorter afternoon tour across the valley from Nozawa. Amazing amounts of snow here considering we were pretty low elevation (500m above sea level to start) and also given how little snow we saw in Nagano on the drive. This area is known for old trees and it certainly was an impressive forest. I thought we were in a park with hundred year old trees planted every 20m... I was worried we would find poor snow conditions due to the lower elevation and warm temperatures but as long as we stayed on non-solar aspects that snow was quite nice. Blue skies to start but then some fog rolled in which was too bad as I was hoping to get some good skiing pictures. Lots of cars in the parking lot but a nice change from slack country skiing as everyone was Japanese (and given it was the weekend that brought more people out - a fair number of snowshoers too). Some interesting other parties observed out there... a snowshoer with skis on her back walking downhill (??) and another guy on snowshoes pushing a fat bike up the definitely non-suitable trail (???).
