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On a mid-Feb morning this year during a holiday with my girlfriend in Japan, I ditched her in the local spa for a facial and massage while I headed out BC splittin' up a hill called Maeyama San which is in Niigata prefecture on Honshu (main island where tokyo is).


Sunrise in Myoko




Beautiful bluebird day to start with, the previous night we got a nice 20cm top-up. This area is known for particularly high snowfalls.







The conditions were perfect, not much wind, nice temperature of about -5C, great vis and great light.









The face behind me there (called Kanna San) is one I really want to hit, it's a solid 45-50 degrees. On the day in question it was a "no-go" as in the last week there'd easily been a metre of snow, 2 days earlier it had been bluebird in the morning and warmed up (south facing), it's corniced to buggery, not to mention it was also wind loaded!






Most people think there's no steeps in japan, you just gotta look!



After the obligatory onigiri (rice balls with salmon) at the top...






...it was time to






To keep clear of sketchy avalanche conditions, we stayed high on a ridge...




...until we dropped into thicker trees and rang the bell on the door to the white room





Check out the snowdrift in the tree behind me, the snow here honestly defies the laws of physics!




Yeah, I don't think you can get tired of this!




Lookin' back up thinking, "shiiiiiiiiiiiiitt, coupla hours up, 2 minutes down..."




Mmmmm, soft and fluffy!







After this epic run the weather closed in and it started snowing so I headed back inbounds to the local resort where I picked up my "solid" and got some of this:


I call this blurry shot "small straggly bush about to be massacred"




It was snowing so hard the autofocus on the camera was focusing way short on the falling snow




The landings were all soft so it didn't really matter if you ate it




Bit crappy out of focus but gives you an idea of the powder...




Pretty good day out, girlfriend happy and so was I!