Sorry this is kinda old..
Al, Yanik, and I did 3 days hike in Hakuba last year and here are some pictures.

Day 1. Sarukura to Shorouma-dake (2932m)

Dan the man gave us a ride to Sarukura.

Entrance of Daisekkei


Simple crampons we bought for 1000 yen in the huts at the bottom


Ato chotto ato chotto..


The view was worth


Bit of snow left


Our tent was yellow


Bye bye today


Discovery channel

Day 2. Hakuba-sanso to Karamatsu-dake (2696m)

Ohayo


Yarigatake (2903m) was not hard


Whats that pointy-one called?
[img]http://www.snowjapan.com/e/snow-japan-photo-galleries/ewok 2/ewok 2_27.jpg [/img]

Fugaeri was hard
[img]http://www.snowjapan.com/e/snow-japan-photo-galleries/ewok 2/ewok 2_31.jpg [/img]

Warning


Chotto kowakatta desu


Demo nobotte mimashita


Little treat => Sake yay!

Very nice. I miss hiking and summer snows.

nice pics ewok chan!!

thanks boys. my first hiking deshita.

Day 3. Our original plan was to Goryu but decided to take the Happo-one track down.

Yanik the gentleman had the heaviest backpack with some garbage


J-authors coincidentally


Face in the sky


Summer lifts are fun


We went back to HPL and had a good rest.
Next morning, we headed to Sado island.

Earth Celebration 2007

Nice photos, and good views for summer. Its normally quite hazy.

My friends did a longer version of the same route last week. My friend's husband is a regular in the (European) Alps and reckoned that Kaerazu going south was a grade 3 scramble on the UK scale. Routes are graded on the most difficult part, and he said there is a section with a narrow ledge with chains that leads to a ladder with massive exposure below. They were quite annoyed because the Lonely Planet Hiking in Japan book didn't mention it at all and they hit it after climbing back up from Yari Onsen. The book doesn't even say that Daisekkei is a snowfield and that you can rent four point crampons at the bottom. I'd given them some, otherwise they wouldn't have known. Note that if you do the route in reverse, the steep exposed ascent turns into a steep exposed descent.

Beware of crap guidebooks!

Nice pic ewok!