Elena Hight and Travis Rice find solace, weigh their options and talk avalanche mitigation after a quick exit and short hike from the boundaries of Naeba Ski Resort. SECRET SQUIRREL Morning brings sunshine and a rendezvous with Travis and Shin in the Naeba parking lot. A couple of gondolas rise from the formidable slopeside hotel—the mountain is one of many in Japan’s Prince Hotel network—serving a high ridgeline that rolls off into a series of massive gullies, most of which are very off limits. Dave Nurse, a new friend from New Zealand, relays this information as we board the gondola. He’d driven up from Tokyo that morning and, upon hearing we were in town, agreed to play tour guide. After confirming the patrol doesn’t want us ducking ropes—they shut us down immediately when we try to dip out of bounds beyond the main gondola—Dave steers us into warming powder below a closed lift mid-mountain. It’s clear we’ll need to get as high as possible. Travis hatches a plan. “Should we go secret squirrel?” he asks. “Light and fast?” We split into two groups with Travis, Elena, Sean and me taking the highline to forbidden fruit. A quick exit from the upper-mountain double chair and we’re onto that adjacent ridgeline, post-holing to-ward the start of a long, steep gully. Nobody follows us out there, several thousand feet above the valley floor. After cutting the slope, we drop into a small bowl that leads to a widely spaced deciduous for-est. A kamoshika eyes us through the woods. Tracks from this sacred, cloven-hoofed alpine serow are everywhere, plotting a course across steep walls, into unknown pillow fields. They love rowdy terrain. It feels like these gullies must go on forever, creek to creek and ridge to ridge, an endless supply of powder lines just a little farther out, a little farther back. A hasty approach turns into a measured de-scent as we milk it to the bottom. There, a creek runs clear, its deep pools framed by icicles. We hug the steep sides of the gorge, crossing a snowbridge to flatter ground. Japanese cedars, snow caked to their lee sides, stand strong and tall at the bottom of the valley. A smaller creek appears burnt orange with algae, matching the color of the cedar bark. We can hear something akin to Top 40 music playing as après warms up at the base area, but we stay put in the woods, finding a little pop-per, playing until nightfall. Although Naeba holds plenty of potential, its strict no-backcountry policy is a definite turnoff. It seems the place is more about the lodging than the riding anyway. Tomorrow, we’ll try something else. Returning to our hotel, the lights are on at the NASPA Ski Garden. “Should we go night riding?” I ask. “It’s skier-only,” Hana replies, pointing to a comically oversized no-snowboards sign by the elevator. That explains the sideways glances as we walk into the lobby caked in snow with boards in hand. No wonder untracked pockets of powder are clearly visible between the cut runs. The staff is too polite to say much, though. We settle in for another round of buffet and it starts snowing again. YUZAWA 063
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 17.1: Page 63
