Snow unloading tour to the Irori village

[fujita yuji]

Hi, haven't made a post for some time, sorry about it but I've got nothing to share for a while.
At last I have something to share with you, last weekend of snow unloading tour to the Irori village.

Here's some older threads I've posted as introducitons abut the Irori village.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/845296-Irori-life-in-2011-spring
This is 2011 Spring visit with my kid.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/602747-Irori-Life-in-winter
This is 2009 winter visit.

The place does not have much snow if the weather is usual, but this winter it was something wrong.
The path to the place is filled with snow and the gate of the road is closed at the place about ten miles to the village.
The roof snow must be unloaded, otherwise the old buildings will be distorted and destroyed.
That means, my beloved Irori village is in great danger!
As soon as voluntary snow unloading person invitation is shown, I volunteered immediately.

This is my vehicle, as usual. But this time, with general winter mountaineering boots.

The path is full of snow and animal tracks as nobody visited this road for months.

This is the snow unloading team. The shot was taken at the pass peak which has a height of 3600 feet.
I'm the second one from left, wearing ski.

After several hours of walking (and me skiing down the path), We've reached the place.

Stay tuned please...

 

[fujita yuji]

The place is full of snow and its weight is just about to crush the village!
We must unload the snow at once!

But first we must have lunch. beside the openfire of Irori.

This grills (toasts?) the bread really well.

Removing roof snow isn't an easy job. The snow is quite packed hard. So hard that plastic shovel seldom works.
Good old heavy steel shovel is the way to go.

At night, it is indoor openfire time.

Pork stew with noodles was the dinner.

After the main dish, and if enough charcoal is accumulated, it is time for this.

Yes it was me who carried this meat up to the place on ski.

And an obligatory blade shot here. It's working pretty well for about an year but covered with patina and I can hardly see the maker's mark anymore

The sky was so clear and clean. But it was not very cold.

Next morning it was snowing pretty hard.

But we had to leave the place.

Some buildings were damaged quite seriously and we're not sure if we can find money for that.
I did things that I can do to my best for the time being but it is not finished yet, apparently.

Thanks for reading.

 

[fujita yuji]

This thread is to share Japanese outdoor field with you.
Our country is known for technologies, urban environment, bullet trains, things like that but actually about 80% of the land is covered with mountains and forests.
We have lots of snow in winter in mountain region, and lots of animals.
As lots of nice outdoor scenes posted here and I enjoy them pretty much, I just wanted to share our field with you and hopefully you enjoy them.

Again thanks for reading.

 

[Bob W]

I have no interest in cities or crowds of people, but I'd love to visit the forests and historic villages in Japan. Thanks for sharing your photos and your stories of that beautiful country. :thumbup:

 

[S.Alexander]

Very beautiful country. That snow on the roof was very deep!

Thanks for sharing your story.

 

[baldtaco-II]

Looking good. I've been really hoping for snow for next weekend, but slim chance. There will be a guy with us that has never camped in snow, and this will be his small window of opportunity for a while as he transcends jobs. He's more hopeful that I 'cos he's just bought a bunch of gear drawing from what is for him a whole new world. So, Grrr ;-)

Toasting works. One toasts the outside. One grills through.

Shame about the knife. You'll have to talk him into making another one.

In the context of others that picked shoes, why did you opt for skis?

 

[fmajor007]

This thread is to share Japanese outdoor field with you.
Our country is known for technologies, urban environment, bullet trains, things like that but actually about 80% of the land is covered with mountains and forests.
We have lots of snow in winter in mountain region, and lots of animals.
As lots of nice outdoor scenes posted here and I enjoy them pretty much, I just wanted to share our field with you and hopefully you enjoy them.

Again thanks for reading.

Thank you for sharing photo's of your beautiful country!

I would one day enjoy visiting Japan and being able to see it in all it's amazing variety (particularly in the Fall/Winter seasons), but it's out of the question for me currently. Japanese culture is *very* interesting to me (I've studied cultural anthropology and enjoy learning about other people/people groups).

I hope your group is able to safely return to that area and prevent further damage to the buildings there.

 

[fujita yuji]

Thanks for your reply. I'm really happy to see you enjoyed.

Looking good. I've been really hoping for snow for next weekend, but slim chance. There will be a guy with us that has never camped in snow, and this will be his small window of opportunity for a while as he transcends jobs. He's more hopeful that I 'cos he's just bought a bunch of gear drawing from what is for him a whole new world. So, Grrr ;-)

Toasting works. One toasts the outside. One grills through.

Shame about the knife. You'll have to talk him into making another one.

In the context of others that picked shoes, why did you opt for skis?

Thanks for your comment, baldtaco-II. Wish you and your friend have a good chance to go out.

I'm deeply disappointed about the former blade. The package is gone and I couldn't reclaim it.
Maybe my writing of forms was bad enough to be lost.

In general I choose to go with ski whenever possible because of
1. the speed. Especially in deep snow and downhill.
2. silence. I can reach wild animals without being noticed.

It is useless in densely wooded steep slope (and most of the Japanese mountains have this type of environment).
But this time I knew the path has no tree and the slope is quite flat because it is a closed road.