Springs here!
I think what did it for me was spending all Sunday mountain-biking, Monday doing rope-work and belaying off the Matsukawa bridge then Tuesday & Wednesday canoeing and swimming in Aokiko lake. Lying in the sun, loving the heat, then turning red from sunburn…somehow it’s hard to muster the enthusiasm for getting back on the snow. We had a fantastic Winter, a lot of amazing powder days, hundreds of great clients got up on the skifields here and enjoyed a great season, and now for us its time to turn our attention to the greener time of year. So for this year our Winter Journal is signing off…
…keep track of our exploits in the Summer Journal and maybe catch you over Golden Week for a morning skiing/riding 47, a bike-ride to Aokiko, a lazy paddle and a swim and then an evening drinking under the Cherry Trees….
Tri-Modal Challenge 2008
The weekend of April 5th & 6th saw Evergreen hold the third annual Tri-Modal Challenge. This year the event was held at Hakuba Goryu and we were blessed with a blue-bird weekend and minimal wind on race-day…the weather couldn’t have been better. Evergreen staff spent Thursday and Friday constructing everything and Saturday morning the finishing touches were put on the course.
Setting up ‘the swamp’
Saturday was pre-race day where competitors and interested riders could try out the course while Evergreen staff watched how the riders did and made final adjustments to race gate pole positioning, bank angles, jump sizes and so on while chilling to the sounds of our very own DJ Large and DJ K5. By the end of the day riders were happy with their performance and staff were happy with the course and a meeting was held with all staff & competitors finalising the order of events for race day. The day finished with a bbq at The Pod Bar located right on the ski-field then later that night we got down to the live sounds of Sabunyuma and Jah Jah and DJ’s Dorobo and Jimmy Concrete (kinda) at the Tri-Modal Challenge party at Tracks Bar .
BBQ at The Pod, Sabunyuma, Jah Jah
Sunday was race-day and with no wind and sunshine spirits were high. We had DJ Mighty Mark direct from Nagano providing the tunes for the day and MC Tetsu assisting Timekeeper (TK) James Robb.
First up were the Individual Competitors who each challenged the course on Telemarks, Boards & Skis in that order and who set the standard for speeds on all 3 modes. Not the least of which was our very own Dave Enright who was threatening to win the event until he lost one ski as he burst out of the start-gate on his final run. After the Individuals came the teams who, though challenging themselves time-wise, had to also work with their team-mates to do their best to complete the course with similar times so as to reduce their time spread as the winning team was that with the least spread between members. This was achieved better than we’ve ever seen by Team “Powderland” (see results below).
Prizes were awarded for more than just high speeds and low time spreads however with prizes going out for:
Best Costume: Takumi Izumiyama
Best Air Style: Sacchan from Spicy Rentals
Biggest Air: Luke Cooper from Powderland
Worst Stack: Daisuke (Tracks Bar Telemarker)
Best Nordic Style: Matsumoto-san from Rapie
Best Water Entry/Exit: Hateman Team’s Snowboarder with 180’s in and out
Final Results
Individuals
1st Place: Jon Daily. Telemark: 1:13. Board: 1:19. Ski: 1:04. Combined Time: 3:36
2nd Place: Ryu Nagai. Telemark: 1:12. Board: 1:27. Ski: 1:01. Combined Time: 3:40
3rd Place: Tomoyuki Yamamura. Telemark: 1:09. Board: 1:29. Ski: 1:03. Combined Time: 3:41
Teams
1st Place: Powderland. Telemark: 1:15. Board: 1:16. Ski: 1:15. Time Spread: 0:01
2nd Place: Sabunyuma. Telemark: 1:20. Board: 1:25. Ski: 1:25. Time Spread: 0:05
3rd Place: Hataeman. Telemark: 1:23. Board: 1:16. Ski: 1:07. Time Spread: 0:16
Powderland also won the fastest team category taking the competition out. The day fininshed with another BBQ at The Pod and some lazy afternoon beers. A big thanks to all our sponsors, all staff & volunteers and, last but not least, thanks to all our entrants.
See you all next year!
Click here to see more photos of the event!
April Storm Snow and Unstable Slopes
Over the last 3 days we have received up to a metre of fresh snow in wind deposited areas and this has resulted in very unstable conditions in the Hakuba backcountry and in off piste areas in ski resorts. Rising temperatures will cause even greater instability, so expect skier/ boarder triggered and natural avalanches. look below at the pictures of a boarder triggered slab avalanche on an off piste, out of bounds, easterly lee slope on Happo. The Crown fracture was 50 m wide and 80 cm deep and the total length of the size 2 slide was 250 m. The slab released with in the storm snow. The rider who set off the slide and others in the group were not harmed, but will, hopefully, think twice before jumping into a big open slope like that again.
Happo ski patrol investigating the size 2 avalanche with Evergreen Guide.
Avalanche debris travelled into and through the trees 250 m below the crown fracture.
Little bit of snow…
There’s been a bit of snow this season…check out the state of the summer vans here
Evergreen Backcountry Tours
Evergreen guides have been busy running 2 or 3 backcountry tours a week over the season…check out some shots from a recent fox course here
BC Shots
Lots of snow recently and as we all know the BC has been pretty unstable but the Evergreen Team have still been able to find some good safe terrain for some nice face shots. Check out our photo gallery here for some photos taken over the last few weeks…hikes, snow-pits, tree runs and some pit deep pow!
Another bluebird day…
Hakuba Photo Gallery
Got a Hakuba related photo you’d like to share? If so send it to us at tours@evergreen-outdoors.com with the subject “Photo for your blog” and if we decide its worthy we’ll put it on our website here.
Evergreen Goryu Base
This season has seen us at Evergreen set up a base center at Goryu Skifield. Located on the first (that’s second if you’re Japanese) floor of Escal Plaza it provides a means for people in the Goryu area to have quality lessons with English speaking instructors close to their accommodation. Someone is there everyday from 8:45-2:00 and lessons are available for half-days (AM 9:30-12:00, PM 1:30-4:00) and full-days (9:30-3:30 with a one-hour lunch break). Drop by and say hello…
January RAC/ARAC course
The long weekend of January 12-14th saw the first avalanche awareness course of the 2008 season. Our intrepid adventurers on the advanced course observed and investigated the fallout from a large Size 3 avalanche from the peak of Hakuba Norikura Dake. The crown fracture was an average of 70 cms over a width of 200 meters and ran close to a kilometer to it’s run out on the flats of the Tsugaike shizen. There were massive blocks of high density wind slab and debris that was piled 5 meters deep in places. The avalanche is presumed to have happened in the early hours of January 14th. Photos courtesy of Sarah Mulholland (basecampphotography) can be found here
December 14th Fresh Powder!
Snow to the bottom! Fresh powder up top! Smiles everywhere!
Took two Australian lasses, Jess and Ari, out on the slopes today for Evergreen’s first lesson of the season. We were joined by SBC (Shinshu Broadcasting Corp) who are doing a story on the influx of foreign visitors to Hakuba for skiing. The show will air on January 2nd in Nagano.
The skiing was great. 20 cms of fresh powder snow on a thick base of snow and ice. All areas above 1200m are great skiing but as I found out by skiing to the bottom today there is not really enough to enjoyably ski to 750 metres. It will take the snow that is forecasted to fall over the next 3~4 days to make for great riding right to the bottom.
With all the new snow we are most surely going to have a great White Christmas Special in Hakuba this year. There will be caroling at the Mominoki Hotel, a big Christmas feast, Drinks and of course the yearly “X-mas Snowshoe Hike”.
For all of those lucky people who can get away for the winter holidays and make their way to Hakuba the snow will be waiting for you and so will the staff at Evergreen Outdoor Center. We can assist you and your group with Ski and Snowboard instruction, Snowshoe tours, X-country tours, Cultural tours, Backcountry tours and Avalanche courses all through Hakuba’s long season. November 24th ~ May 6th. So find some time to break away from it all and come visit us in Hakuba. We would love to show you around Hakuba and Nagano this winter. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
November 24th
Keen riders and skiers were treated to a delicious morning breakfast of Hakuba Powder today. The Evergreen crew were ripping first tracks on Happo-One this AM and whooping it up all the way down with smiles. It has been a long time since we have been able to get powder of this deepness and quality in NOVEMBER!!! The Alpen Quad lift and Panorama Chairs gave skiers ample terrain to tear up and by 10:30AM the slopes were pretty much tracked up. Check out the mad tele-skis (or planks) that our guide Mako is sporting, fat is an understatement! Hopefully this epic 1st day will be the precursor to even more memorable days this coming winter….stay tuned for more from Team Evergreen!
