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Today’s setup: Xplore. Destination: Tenguhara. I also wanted to check how much of the hiking trail was exposed.Turns out…
it’s still mostly buried under snow.As you can see in the photo above,
the slopes of Mt. Hakuba Norikura are still holding that “plastered wall”
look.Even with Xplore gear, it would have been just a super safe, uneventful
descent, so I decided not to ski.Instead, I took a short nap on the terrace.
The slope at Tenguhara was just a way down, nothing more.I used a mix of
diagonal descents and direction changes to get back down.With this much
snow, skiing is way faster and safer than walking?at least for me.Skiing is a means to an end.The goal? Just getting some exercise.My health
check-up is coming up, after all… gotta do what I can to bring those numbers
down.
Still felt like I hadn’t moved enough, so I headed toward Mt. Korenge
from the Nature Park.The lightweight setup and step-cut soles let me start
walking without much fuss?amazing.And once you start walking, there’s
really no reason to stop. (…Or is there?)As long as you keep stacking
kick turns, you can climb surprisingly far.Eventually, I made it to the
2,301-meter plateau shown on the map.Great view up there.
For a moment, I considered pushing all the way up the big slope toward Mt. Korenge itself?but that would’ve been overkill given my gear setup, so I let that idea go.
For the descent, again it was all about traversing and changing direction,
just like on Tenguhara.The snow surface was deeply rutted and bumpy.You
climbed all that way and didn’t make any turns?Nope?not today.To me, skiing
is just a tool?part of daily life.A handy way to move quickly through snowy
mountains.A way to shift myself into quieter places where there’s no one
around.And yes, it’s fast. With free heels, of course.
Later, when the snow surface started to flatten out a little, I got bored of traversing and decided to head straight down the fall line.I aimed straight downhill in a narrow corridor to avoid crisscrossing the ruts.What I was using: B-tele.So, not alpine turns, and not traditional telemark turns (i.e. A-tele), either.Still, it was pretty much my max.
Hope this helps anyone curious about the current snow conditions. June
12,2025
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