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May 6th Hiuchigatake
Hiuchigatake was cloudy in the morning, but upon reaching the summit, the skies opened up to another perfect windless sunny day.
We had to wait until 7am for the road up to be opened.The rain during the night at the base was snow on the mountain. It was wet snow, about 5cm or so. It was really cold in the morning. The climb was steep from the beginning so I had my ski crampons in from the beginning. I struggled a little on a long traverse. I found it difficult to straighten my right leg and put my full weight on it, shuffling along instead of walking.
Towards the top I changed to boot crampons and walked to the top comfortably. The skiers were able to continue skinning up. I saw one other splitboarder skin up the whole way with ski crampons. I was impressed, but it did seem sketchy despite his skills. If he did slip it would not have been good. Boot crampons are so much safer and easier, even if it takes a little extra time to swap over, it’s worth it. My switchover to ski mode was successful this time.
I have improved a lot, was able to control my descent through the trees, albeit slowly. However with no falls, I didn’t keep the others waiting for long at all. We were back down at the carpark by 12:40pm. by;abel
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