Annupuri

Here we are hiking up a mountain called Chis-annupuri. In the indigenous language, annupuri, means mountain and most places have two names, one Japanese and one indigenous. This can get very, very confusing.

This was about a 2 hr hike and an amazing ride down. The weather changes even quicker here than in Montana, and we had about 10 minutes of blue sky and then a small system would move in and snow a few centimeters in a 30 minutes or less!

This is on the ski hill on one of our first days.

I think I fell after this! There was just so much snow, it was an insane work out but since the powder was so light it could have been much worse! Good thing there were natural hot springs to soak in every night.

Mt. Yotei, which is the Japanese name. I forget the other name for it, but it is pretty much a slightly smaller version of Mt. Fuji! Apparently you can hike to the peak in 6 hrs, ski the crater in the middle, hike out and ski down in a day!

Last day on the hill and it was the clearest it had been all week! This was our first glimpse at the peak of Mt. Yotei. Despite how clear and mild the weather looks, apparently the winds on Mt. Yotei peak on a day like this are still +80 mph!