TR: Shakushi-dake (Hakuba, Japan)

Last Friday night my good friend Ninja Man AKA Stuntcok called me up and told me the next day was a go for Shakushi-dake (2812m), one of Hakuba’s 3 famous peaks, and as I just checked, Japan’s 60th highest peak.
Here is Shakushi-dake, with our route marked by red dots. Photo courtesy of http://www.steepdeepjapan.com
We rode what we climbed.

I madly packed and after a short sleep set off at 3am (from my house in the next prefecture). I arrived at the Sarukura parking lot (1230m) just before 5am. Ninja Man showed up a bit later with another dirtbag, Filip and we started our hike at 5:18am.  First, we had to go up the Daisekkei, a long valley which holds the snow for a long time into the summer.

and looking behind me:

Just after this point I realized that eating those pastries from the convenience store at 4am hadn’t been a good idea and I actually wondered if I was going to make it!

We finally made it to the foot of Shakushi and started up.

I broke trail for a while but when I looked back, Ninja Man and Filip were catching up.

I started slipping in the fresh snow (yes, powpow in May!) and had to figure out how to attach my snowshoes to my pack, while still carrying my board and crampons.

I love going up steep inclines because when you look down, you can see how much you’ve climbed. This felt awesome:

The wind was pretty insane in the main chute so we decided to do the next one over, which was steeper anyways. We did get rocked by some strong gusts though. I remember being blown back and losing my footing a couple of times. Because it was so windy, instead of the rockstar image I had going in the parking lot, my toque ended up looking like an elf hat, and my balaclava kept crawling up the left side of my face. The evidence:

Ninja Man was breaking trail (I had given up any breaking trail ambitions a while back) and he got stuck in an icy rock band (not the game). This sucks because you don’t realize you’re in trouble until you can’t go up any further. Then you have to figure out how to downclimb (and he was in skiboots). Just then, his phone rang - a total wft? moment. Later, he told me his first thought was “woah, I have reception out here?!!” before remembering just where he was.

So he managed to get out of it and they yelled down to me that I wouldn’t need crampons and to just head over the ridge on the right. No problem, until I found I had a traverse across 45 to 50 degrees of 10cm of fresh over hardpack! I had just taken my ice axe out luckily and got a crash course of how to hang on for dear life. I had 2 or 3 ‘moonwalk’ moments where both feet slipped out and I was just supporting myself with the axe. After I got round the corner I thought ” no way am I doing that again!”.
Here is Ninja Man in that section

We got back into the pow then and it was easy going (at least for me in the rear he he). Filip, who was a workhorse, blasted up and took this shot near the summit:

Filip thought there was a cornice on the left so he headed right:

But when Ninja Man got up there he checked and it was just a ridge ha ha. Still, Filip had a great vantage point.
Ninja Man nearing the top

This is about the point when things started to suck for me. Ninja Man had just booted up the last steep section by hammering his ski boots in and scampering up. When I got there though, I had no traction again from by snowboard boots and had some more ‘no,no,no!’ moments as my feet started to slide. My arms were exhausted from hanging on to the ice axe. Man, I was stuck there for about 20 mins! I couldn’t go up, I couldn’t go down, and it was too steep to even think about reaching for the crampons/snowboard. My feet had no purchase and I was SOL. After a while, Ninja Man and Filip wondered what I was doing and yelled down. Talking to them gave me renewed energy and I slowly edged over away from the steep shoulder and into the middle of the run. The snow was deeper here and I was able to climb up!
Me, in hell:

I was soooo exhausted at the top.
The view from the top. Ninja man’s tracks on the left, mine in the middle and Filip’s ski tracks on the left.

Ninja Man and Filip had been waiting at the top for half an hour so they were anxious to get going. I had been hiking for 8 hours, with the last 30 mins being mentally and physically draining…so I put my goggles on crooked - ah, the shame!
ninjaman and I at the top (2640m)

Finally, we get to the riding!
Filip drops in

Next Ninja Man drops in

I was left on my own… with Shirouma-dake in the background

A couple of shots of me

Shirouma from halfway down

Ninja Man trying to be a posterboy with his ‘pensive’ look

Ninja Man skis down the bottom section

The way we came (what? my goggles are still crooked?? somebody tell me already!)

The way down

Hands up if you’re mountain men

another angle

Our lines

Up close (it really pays to do bc with skiers -> they break trail and then they ski skinny lines, leaving me the big turns! My tracks are on the left)

The two skiers going back down the Daisekkei

and to end, the mandatory hero shot in the parking lot!

Thanks for reading!

Thank you for taking the time to post that, amazing day out. the only thing that could of made it better is if I was there with you !!!!

Great pics

Those pics are just awesome
WOW - wish I was up for something like that

Love the pic of the lone shot in thigh deep POW

Dude, that is epic! Excellent trip report! You just made me so jealous and I’m dying to get back on my snowboard.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Just awesome!

Awesome post. Nice read. Someday I will come there to Hakuba and do something on a smaller scale with you…I hope…

That is EPIC!!!

Great photos also

Very nice! thanks for sharing.
What an experience. I only hope to have a similar experience some day.
You’ve got good friends that they called you!
They could have called someone else.

I can appreciate the snowboard boot, vs ski boot difficulty. Crampons would have been nice about that time…. Why had you not been wearing them the whole time? I’ve never used them or needed them, so I wonder.

the snow was deep most of the way so snowboard boots were fine. I was expecting that there would be a flat-ish spot before any gnar where I could get the crampons on. Trouble is, that mountain just goes straight up so there was no place to switch to crampons (so I should have had them on from the beginning), also it went from ok footing to zero footing without warning, which is why I got stuck. Normally you climb that peak in corn snow and just go up with crampons.

mad, that’s absolutely awesome.. and pics are great as well.. i bet you had time of your life

thanks for all the comments guys.
This trip is not one I’ll forget in a hurry. It was the perfect capper to a sick season.

but next year I’m going to have to get to the peak!

Moving this thread to Mountains and Travel…

As if I didn’t already want to go to Japan- F’ing Wild!