How to clear a path through 60 feet of snow, Japanese style (2017) | Hacker News Reader

How to clear a path through 60 feet of snow, Japanese style (2017)

atlasobscura.com

99 pointssohkamyung36 comments

> As temperatures rise, snowfall across the west side of Japan should decrease, Kawase reported, in a November 2013 study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. But the decrease will be much more pronounced at lower elevations, such as Toyama, where much of the city’s snow falls with temperatures near the freezing mark. A few degrees warmer here will make a big difference. Higher elevations will likely continue to have exceptionally snowy winters, at least in the short term. Still, the culture of Japan’s Snow Country may already be changing.

> “I remember when I was in high school there was a lot more snow,” says Tanikawa, who is now 50. “In the morning snow fell and it would fall all day while we were at school. When I came back home there would be 40 to 50 centimeters of snow to clear. My children,” Tanikawa adds, “have not had that experience.”

I live on the west coast of Japan at the foot of the mountains, and it's striking how much snowfall is decreasing in recent years. The last two years have been record setting due to lack of snowfall. The local municipal ski resort didn't open at all this past winter, and for the annual snow festival in February they had to truck in some snow from somewhere else.

Since temperatures here tend to hover just around freezing in the winter, a small temperature difference can mean the difference between rain or 50 cm of snow. Year-to-year differences are becoming more variable, too. Three years ago we were buried in so much snow that the city had to send in a team with heavy duty snow machines to dig us out (typically neighborhoods here are self-sufficient in terms of snow removal). We had about 2 meters piled up in our yard. But these past two years it was mostly just rain.

On the one hand, it's very convenient to not have to deal with so much snow in the winter. And the mountains nearby still receive plenty of snow for skiing and other recreation. But it does feel like a part of what makes this area special is vanishing. And I'm sad that my kids won't be able to experience it to the same degree.

A couple of years ago the capital of Alaska recorded zero snowfall for an entire winter.

First time in recorded history.

Japan has massive variability in snow amounts depending on area in same year. This is because vast majority of snow is from lake effect of Siberian highs passing over Sea of Japan and hitting mountains. Depends on exact angle different places get different amount, micro climate is king.

Last year in Nozawa was late, January was bad. But actual total amounts were far from bad. Year before was an amazing year in Hakuba and Nozawa. I was skiing powder in April, knee deep. My Ski app shows I skied 15 powder days that season.

Charmant Hiuchi had also late year but huge dumps in March.

Truth is that many of the Japanese resorts Under report their snowfall, most customers are Japanese and intermediate/beginners they do not want to wake up to a knee deep on piste snow. So you get them reporting 10cm where it is more like 30.

During ski bubble a ton of resorts were built that should not have been. Really really bad spots. They are mostly dead by now, but there are still some chugging along, they always had crap snow, but because normal wait time for lift at good resorts was measured in hours back then people built them and made some money.

One more fun fact the warmer the sea is the better the lake effect. Places like Hakuba might get more snow at higher elevation then before as sea warms up. All their snow is from blow over from 3k peaks that have temperatures more in -20 range so small warmup will do nothing to them.

Driving through these roads just after they open around March/April is a blast. If you look enough, you can find places where you can actually climb on the snow walls and ski/hike on the snow slopes yourself. You may see a few trees whose apex is slightly protruding from the snow. It really feels like walking on the forest's canopy.

Apart from the road mentioned in this article, which I believe is the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, you have the Shibu-touge (渋峠) road, which crosses the mountains between the Nagano and Gunma prefectures [1].

The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route does not allow private traffic on it year-round: it is a bus/taxi-only road. So if you are driving on your own, Shibu-touge is a great alternative. Route 299 going through the Yatsugatake (八ヶ岳) mountains is another alternative [2], although less fun in my opinion.

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/YbsoEgvih4oG3xvX9

[2] https://goo.gl/maps/nJB26wo6YzPVcawH9

This article refers to "Mt. Tateyama" This is a slight misnaming. The suffix -yama in Japanese means "Mount." Hence, Mt. Fuji is called Fujiyama. And Tateyama is correctly called Mt. Tate in English, as seen by the article about it in Wikipedia[1] or Tateyama, but not Mt. Tateyama.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tate

To be pedantic, Mt. Fuji's is called Fujisan in Japanese (the character 山 can be read as yama or san).

Interestingly, the redundancy isn’t always incorrect. Maybe it is for mountains? But many rivers in Japan have official English names that include “kawa.”

I just looked on Wikipedia and see there are two Arakawas (at least); one is the Arakawa River and one is the Ara River.

And 川 can be gawa or kawa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_River

And Yama can be San. Also many mountains use dake. Like Jonen-dake

> The words Akigawa River sound a bit odd, as kawa and gawa, 川, are Japanese words for river,[7][8] so Aki River makes more sense, or simply Akigawa, perhaps Akikawa.

Wow, this is the most unprofessional copy I’ve seen on Wikipedia! Maybe someone meant to write this on the talk page and accidentally posted in the article? I guess it’s so small potatoes, there’s no editor watching closely.

Anyway, from a Japanese perspective “gawa” isn’t really different. It’s just a voiced consonant shift to better flow with the preceding sound. There’s a word for it, but can’t remember it off the top of my head.

> There’s a word for it, but can’t remember it off the top of my head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku

That's it. Thanks!

What does 'official' mean? Does Japan publish English names for their geographical features?

Actually yes, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan publishes official rules for English geographic names[0].

Also, I see that Mt. Tateyama is specifically listed here with "yama." So the article was correct.

[0] https://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000138865.pdf

The Mt ...yama and ...kawa River variations are common even on official signage in Japan.

The problem is that English speakers might not understand that “Tateyama” means “Mt Tate” and Japanese speakers might not understand that “Mt Tate” means “Tateyama”, so Mt Tateyama is a compromise.

Like Chai Tea. Chai means Tea in Hindi.

I dislike the ‘Mt.’ prefix attached to every mountain anyway.

Mt Matterhorn. Mt Denali. Mt Mont Blanc. Eurgh.

On that note, the <town>, <country> notation is hideous. Paris, France. Rome, Italy.

Bleurgh.

There's loads of fun examples of this across the world - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...

I particularly like "Torpenhow"

I'm a Lake Semerwater (Lake-sea-mere water : lake lake-lake-lake fan personally).

I just looked this up responding to another comment and noticed that Mt. Tateyama is actually the official name recognized by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.

https://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000138865.pdf

We do the same in Italy, this is a picture of Gran Sasso before the "Giro d'Italia", the most important bike race in Italy (the Italian Tour de France)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/BvqlYZ8WP7Z_bC4J6q3D...

I cannot open your link, I get a 403 Forbidden

Sorry

Try this one

http://www.neveappennino.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Simon...

I wonder if this inspired Frappe Snowland in Mario Kart 64: https://youtu.be/QIG46_eRiNo?t=82

I'm there with ya - one of the images in the article had me immediately think of that part of the level.

60 feet of snow is about 18 meters and one banana.

The road to the Mount Baker ski resort looks pretty similar often in winter. If I remember correctly they get around 20 meters of snow every (the list a world record of 29 meters of snow during 98-99)

Washington and Japan seem to get pretty similar amounts of snow. The North Cascades highway usually doesn't open until sometime in late April or May because of how much snow that area of the state gets. Pictures of it look just like this highway in Japan.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13891344

Article took quite a while to get to the point - TL;DR is a series of bulldozers, backhoes, and large rotary snowplows.

From the title, I expected something more non-standard, like some massive purpose-built contraption.

I once drove from Sacramento to Sugar Bowl ski resort on the I80. Actually I ended in Sugar Bowl, because it was before GPS and all signs along I80 were buried in snow.

“Originally, removing the snow was just to be able to bring people and supplies to the Tateyama Kokusai Hotel,” says Tanikawa, “but then we realized that we have something fairly exceptional, and why not bring people to see the walls.”

Got to love the idea of taking a huge, but cool, expense and turning it into an attraction.

I once caught a bus up a mountain in Northern Japan in Spring to go on a hike... And faced a wall of snow like that at the trailhead. Thankfully there was a volcanic onsen open nearby so I did that instead.

TL;DR one storm at a time using commercially available truck mounted blowers and dirt moving equipment.

Quite amazing

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