With a plane ticket leaving the following day. On my last full day in Japan Andre suggested that we go check out Hakuba as I had never been there and it was a 2 hour drive away so we went to check out Happo One, one of the biggest of numerous resorts in the area. With a Gondola and 2 chair lift bump we made our way to the top of the resort at 2100 meters and would climb an addition 600 to the top of the ridge.
This guy was carrying his kid while skiing down steep moguls right under the chair.
Once at the top of the lifts we switched to skinning making our way up the ridge as far as possible before switching to boot packing.
The mountains were insanely beautiful as well as scary, it was all avi terrain. It’s a unique and wild zone with so many resorts around.
As we made our way up I was amazed by the easy access to such big lines with a simple skin. I imagine it gets quite crazy in Mid Jan
In the distance we could see Hiuchi and Myoko Kogen which I had rode a few days prior.
It was a beautiful day to take our time and take in the views of such unique mountains.
for the final kilometer we switched over to bootpacking and following the crowd of people heading up and down the packed in trail. 
Once we made it to the final pass before the last climb to the summit of Karamatsu we took a break behind a snowed in hut and dropped off our gear. We only carried one pair of crampons so I went up to the top followed by Andre where we could see vast big terrain in every direction.
Once we took in the views we made the decision to head back down the ridge on our way out as we were concerned about avalanche conditions and it was the only safe way back so we decided to bootpack down a hundred meters than switch to snowboarding.
As we walked down we would see steep ski lines on both sides of the ridge that funneled into big creeks that ended miles away.
After bootpacking for an hour we finally switched over to snowboarding and rode breakable crust following the steep ridge along the way.
Once we saw the lifts we were happy to get back on groomed snow as we were riding in firm crust.
When we got to the top of the ski resort we were excited to have a nice smooth groomer and hoped the rest of the resort we be as good.
But we were wrong as it was pretty much steep moguls from top to bottom for around 1,500 meters.
It was a cruel run down as we rode around 2,100 vert with maybe a turn or two of good snow but it was a great day to get out and see the Hakuba area. Thanks Andre for a trip we will laugh about for years to come. 