Gassan, Yamagata, 2014.5.25

Last time I went to Gassan (http://www.snowjapan...magata-2014429/), I wrote, "I will definitely go back some time." So I did, today.
The weather forecast looked reasonable, and I figured the snow coverage should still be pretty good, so I thought, what the heck.

As it turned out, the entire population of Japan thought the exact same thing.

Hit the road at 4:30, made it there by 9:00, and was one of the last cars allowed into the parking lot. Those behind us ended up parking alongside the road going down the hill from the pension mura.

Looking up at the hill, look at all those ants!


And the lift line! This is not Naeba ca 1988:


Well, I guess once everything else is closed, where else are you going to go?

The inhabitants of Honshu took up residence on the (greatly-expanded since last month) mogul courses:


Kyushu and Shikoku battled it out in a snowboard mogul (!) competition off the first T-bar lift:


Okinawa went hiking beyond the pale:


Hokkaido was lost in the trees.

Other than some bare spots near the top of the chair lift, coverage seemed still pretty complete.




Last time, there were two mogul courses. This time, there were more mogul courses than you could shake a stick at.



Actually, this was a nice thing, if one is at all interested in moguls. One could go hunting for a mogul course at one's level. I hunted around and found some (many) too hard, some too easy, and some... just right! めっちゃ楽しい, as the kids say.