A difficult few days in Japan's snowy areas

It hasn't been a great few days for foreigners in Japan's snow country. Over the weekend, a Canadian woman visiting Niigata died after falling into a waterfall while snowboarding off-course at Hakkaisan, a ski area many of us in this region know well...it's literally only about a 20 minute drive from my house. Not long before that, an Australian also lost their life in Nagano because of a backpack strap getting tangled in ski lift machinery.

A trip to Hakkaisan is often part of my family's regular winter routine, so hearing about this incident really hit close to home. I blogged here on City-Cost recently about the dangers of back country skiing, and in this case, someone has lost their life because of it.