Yamagata Prefecture is in the north of Japan near the Japan Sea. It is famous for snow! This year we planned a New Year's trip, but one week before we left there was only 15cm. However it then started to snow heaviliy, and over 2 metres fell in the following two weeks. The weather wasn't so good but we had a lot of snow!
It was very light, airy snow, with no base, so snow-shoeing was very hard - fun, but very tiring.