Another amazing day in the backcountry! There is nothing like it! If you are fit enough to hike with pack, and are an advanced level skier or boarder, I highly recommend heading out into the backcountry to earn your turns.... with a qualified backcountry guide of course!!!! There are so many risks you may not be aware of. Knowledgable guides will be able to choose the terrain that suits your abilty so you can have your best day out ever! Moreover, you will need avalache saftey equipment to minimize the risks. I suggest you contact Evergreen Outdoor Center for more information about backcountry tours, avalanche awareness training, and equipment rentals. You will not regret it!

For all things backcountry, we suggest you get in touch with the people all Evergreen Outdoor Center. We did, and so did Jeremy Jones! Get a sneak peak of Jeremy Jones' epic adventure here.

Evergreen provides a variety of levels of Avalance Skills Training courses, and Guided Backcountry Tours, so you too can go deeper and stay safe.

With Hakuba's growth in popularity in recent years, there has been a constant increase in services to meet demand. New restaurants, rental shops, ski schools, shuttles, and tours are popping up every year. Hakuba Snow Sports is getting with "The Program" by offering advanced level skiers and snowboarders a 5 day camp that promises to take you to the next level and into the deepest of powder not only in the Hakuba valley, but also other resorts way way out. The 90,000 yen admission fee may seem a bit steep but there is a lot in the package. Click on the pic for more details.

This one is for all the shredding sistas out there. Sugarbeat, from Fullface Productions, shows us what Czech grrlz have been up to. Great soundtrack, beautiful cinematography, cool anime graphics, and of course some seriously talented athletes make this a truly inspirational film for all of us grrlz out there. Watch the full length video on vimeo or check it out right here:

Mountain lovers love Hakuba! Check out this freeride footage all flimed in the beautiful Hakuba Alps.

Some of the Think Thank crew stayed with us last season. We never really saw them though. They were out the door before I woke up, and rarely got back before dark. These guys work hard!!!! Check out Ransack Rebellion to see what they were up to all day.

but this is just a teaser. You can get the full deal here

This makes me want to snowboard... now!

    Read about our summer time shred fest in Shimoda, here!

On March 3rd a whole crew of us found powder paradise. Our very own Powder Paradise in fact. See if you can spot anyone else in the resort?! You can read about it here.

Rich, one of the Snow Season Japan guests that came and stayed for the 2011 season, made this awesome little video about this awesome powder day. Makes me "Woohoohoo!" everytime I watch it!

Thanks, Rich!

Think Thank came and went and has 8 minutes of video to prove it.

We woke up to 30 cm of fresh pow and sunshine on March 11. Yasu and I headed up to Goryu for fresh tracks and then headed back to tabi-tabi to make the switch from snowboards to our yuki-ita. Just as we were about the head out, Amir and Aisa arrived from Tokyo and decided to join us for a bindingless boarding challenge.

Once on the board they became instant yuki-ita fans. We got plenty of fresh lines, and a lot more laughs. Aisa remembers the ground moving once when we were there but thought it was just the Chu-hi (Japanese sho-chu and soda in a can) hitting her. We had plenty of fun until our stomachs grumbled and decided it was time for some local soba (buck-wheat noodle soup). I stepped into the restaurant first and noticed everyone glued to the television. Had a look myself but couldn't make any sense of it. Yasu came in, had a look, and said, "Tsunami!". We instantly lost our appetite and started making calls to all those people we thought might be affected but almost all the lines were dead or busy.

We frantically returned home, started watching the news for updates, and continued making calls. Eventually friends and family were all accounted for but on the news the scenes of destruction and death tolls continued to rise and rise. Amir went back to Tokyo on Sunday and called us when he got back. All seemed OK but there was very little food in the supermarket, and absolutely  no rice to be found. "We'll send you some!" but turned out  courier services weren't making deliveries to Tokyo.

After surfing pow on my new Yuki-ita, we were itching to see some waves so off to the ocean we went:

It felt great to stretch our eyes out to the horizon:

When in Japan, especially when you are near the ocean, do as the Japanese do, and feast on some seafood!Nihon-kai (The Japanese sea) is said to bear some of the best delicacies,because of its frigid temperatures fish are fattier, and therefore even tastier. This is a great fish market along the west coast of Japan:

With so much choice we had a lot of trouble choosing:

Eventually we went with this HUGE buri (yellowtail) for only 1500 yen:

and the friendly fish butcher cleaned it up for us at no charge:

 when we got home Yasu made Buri Shabu Shabu:

Itadakimasu!

There is always powder somewhere..... so back on the road we went. It was a beautiful sunny day for a drive and the size of the snowbanks on the mountain roads looked very promising:

Had an great day on the mountain and even spotted an smokin' volcano:

As usual Yasu brought his best powder boards including my new yuki-ita, the one and only, Super Fabulous! "yuki" means snow and "ita" means board. There is currently a bit of an underground scene happening and more and more lovers of pow are unstrapping their bindings, dropping their factory made branded boards and switching to handmade, bindingless, planks perfect for a more natural surfer's high!

Today we met a lot of other like-minded snowsurfers from Toyama:

Yoroshiku!

Woke up at 5 and 8 of us were on the road by 6.

We drove for 2 hours through the Japanese countryside:

 and snowy mountain roads:

then found powder paradise:

Needless to say, we were pretty excited:

We showed our appreciation and worshipped the Goddess of snow by spreading her offerings around ... until we couldn't take anymore and partook in the ritual of bathing in thermal waters granted to us by mother earth.

We were then blessed with more offerings from the sea as we filled up on sushi:

Gochisosamadeshita!

Had a pretty lazy day. First the snowplow came and once I was paid up and able to get out of the driveway I dropped off 6 adrenaline seeking guests at Kashimayari Resort. Everyone was excited to hit some kickers, attempt the impossible, and fall into the safety of a giant airbag.

You can see what I am talking about here:

Spent the rest of the day organizing, working on our new website, teaching English to our staff, and will end the day with some yoga. There is a great online yoga site a fellow friend and snowboarder turned me onto a few years ago. They have enough streaming videos with different levels and kinds of yoga, health tips, and recipes to keep you blissing out forever. My guru? My method? My teacher? My yoga online.com!

Namaste,

a

Woke up to sunshine and got a call from K so got geared up and off we went, first to drop off a car and then to pick up J. It was really blustery at the top so we didn't hike for long, scoped our lines and down we went. Conditions were far from ideal. We dealt with windcrust, raincrust, chunky debris, and ice. Got in only a few nice turns in powder. Great views, a dose of vitamin D, and a good catch up with friends made it all worth it anyway.

We would like to thank Think Thank for joining us!

The Think Thank crew was in Hakuba for the first overseas Boxes for Days, and working on footage for their new movie "Ransack Rebellion". Looking forward to seeing them shred parts of the hood that no boards have dared go before. As a farewell gift we received a copy of "Right Brain. Left Brain", the 2 disc film to cover both sides of the noggin has been described as, " Meticulously messy, precisely unpredictable and controlled chaos; snowboarding is everything and can do anything." Here is the teaser for yah:

and a pic of us with them:

Jesse Burtner, Miyuki from Snowstyle Magazine, Maki who shreds for Replant in Hakuba, Mike Yoshida,  Christina Burtner aka Pika (photgrapher, graphic designer, artist.....), Ted Borland, Ross, Chris Larson and  Sean Genovese from Dinosaurs Will Die)