Snow Country (Again)

It seems like all my posts recently are about "snow country", and all my photos are white. While I had hoped to make a much more detaileddescription of the geologics & science of yuki-guni (snow country), and this past weekend offered us the best opportunity yet, we have customers coming this next weekend, and I thought it might be better to prepare for them instead.

Just know that this past weekend was the most snow we had seen all year. Yet, as we walked to the bath today, after two days of clear sunshiny goodness, we found that the walls of snow that line the streets are no longer over our heads. The impressive build-up of snow on the roofs is no longer so impressive (though certainly a great deal heavier) as when the snow was powdery and light.

Last weekend was like a dream. I feel so lucky that that was the weekend that we decided to hike, allowing us to experience the best of the weather in both the mountains and the village. For some, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Luckily, we have many more more years here.

The photos here are from the day after our wonderfully failed hiking attempt. We had discussed going to the Akiyamago Vally, but blowing snow meant that it would be difficult to see anything up there anyway, so we decided to spend time walking around our own village. Even if Chris, our guest at the time, was half as satisfied as I was...

Our house is typical of the newer homes in the area. We have a self-cleaning roof. The angle of the roof and the material causes the snow to fall of naturally as it warms or grows too heavy. Other houses, however, require regular shoveling, as seen in the photos above, and in Chris' photo. Two days ago I climbed up on our neighbor's roof to help shovel snow. I probably just got in the way, but it was a long-time dream for me. (because our own roof only need shoveling in one small spot, so I miss out on the long standing tradition of yukioroshi (roof-shoveling).

The only place on our house that requires shoveling is the ten square-feet above the main entrance, as seen in this photo above. Other than that, we need only to shovel the area where we park our car, and a small path in the backyard leading to the composter (which is currently under a meter of snow). The photo above shows Chris shoveling to earn his room and board. The snow on the top of the car was what fell overnight.

In the old days, people from the village took turns waking up early, putting on their kanjiki snow shoes, and stomping paths in the snow. Now that we have snow-plows, the duties required are simply to shovel the garbage station, in front of the fire-house, and in front of the public meeting hall.

To help keep track of whose turn it is, a sign is made with each household's name. At every major snowfall, the sign is passed from door to door. If there is a lot of snow, two households shovel, if only a little, it is done by one. I just happened to come to our house this weekend (the second time this year), and on Monday morning I joined my neighbor to fulfill my civic duty.

The "downtown" area (photos above) was interesting to visit after the storm. All the shops were closed as people concentrated on finding someplace to put all that snow. While our area has a river and plenty of field space to blow snow from the street, the downtown area is more compact and less fields. People have to be more creative to make two meters of snow disappear.

One interesting aspect of this area, is the difference of snow-depth in just a short distance. While the snow was deep near our home, a one-hundred meter ride up the road gives us a much more impressive photo. Likewise, a half-kilometer to the west put the snow well above Chris' reach (you can barely make out the top of the snow about a half-arm's leangth above his hand). The photo above shows Chris and Tomoe standing in front of the "japan record" for snowfall in an inhabited area. The red line at the top of the post is 7.8 meters. as you can see, we are far from beating the record this year.