British Expatriate Finds Himself Stuck in a Blizzard After Visiting Fox Village in Northeast Japan

British expatriate Chris Broad of the video series “Abroad in Japan” was surprised to discover that northern Japan has some of the most prodigious snowfalls in the world. Undeterred by the weather, Broad and his friend first visited with absolutely adorable vulpine creatures at the renowned Fox Village (Zao Kitsune Mura) in the in the mountains of the Tohoku region. The duo then moved on to the famous Mountains of Monsters where giant evergreens buried under the copious snow take on a fascinatingly eerie aura. Unfortunately ran into a frightening blizzard that caused frustrating whiteout conditions and not a monster to be found.

…I had high hopes that we were going to get some amazing footage of snow monsters when we set out. But the higher we got, the more I realized it wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience. I haven’t been able to see anything outside the windows for the last 20 minutes other than just white. Just white and blizzard, so I’m a little bit worried, to be honest. …We tried to find the snow monsters, but it’s a white out situation. We can only see like 2 meters. And it’s pretty scary because we went through some snow and it was about 4 meters deep. So I kept losing my skis and it was horrible. Genuinely pretty scary.