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Nozawa Onsen Snow Report – Friday
New Snow (Resort): 0cm
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: rain…
Snow Depth: 230cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Maybe snow this evening.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura and Hachiman which probably won’t be open again this season.
It’s raining cats and dogs in Nozawa at the moment – doesn’t get much more miserable than this. The gondola was on hold earlier today due to high winds, it is still quite windy and the gondola is running at low speed.
A look at the webcams shows there are not many people on the mountain – no surprise. It’s a good day to stay inside with a book or a DVD.
Nozawa Onsen Snow Report – Thursday
New Snow (Resort): 5cm
New Snow (Village): 2cm
Weather: overcast
Snow Depth: 245cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Warmer temperatures expected with snow and rain tomorrow evening.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura and Hachiman which probably won’t be open again this season.
Today was the first bluebird day we have had for quite some time. It was a nice day to enjoy the sunshine, perfect visibility, and great views. The slopes were very firm in the morning, softening throughout the day.
With the weekend coming up and also , it should be getting busy on the mountain. Weekend crowds should start to decline from now on. The forecast is for rain and snow top to bottom from tomorrow evening.
Madarao Kogen Report
Madarao Kogen is a reasonably large resort in between Nozawa Onsen in Nagano, and Myoko Kogen in neighbouring Niigata prefecture. With the season winding down I have a bit of time to visit nearby resorts, and I have been interested in Madarao for a long time. Madarao is in a geographical location that gets a lot of snow, they have a liberal policy on grooming (basically they don’t groom the top half of the mountain), and this year have prepared two courses especially to enjoy powder.
Looking back at Nozawa Onsen - what a view. Nozawa Onsen is a great collection of steep bowls and interesting runs along the ridges, excellent quality frequent powder at Yamabiko on the top is the icing on the cake.
- The other way to Myoko Kogen – Very impressive mountain range. There are 4 resorts in this range - a huge amount of terrain in one of the snowiest places in Japan
I visited Madarao on Tuesday, after a day of snow on Monday. The weather was clear and cool, with fog and moderate snow moving in later in the day. The view of Myoko and Nozawa was very impressive and the visit gave me a great overview of the geography that makes up these two resorts.
Elevation Top Lift – 1350 metres
Elevation Bottom Lift – 910 metres
Course Map(Japanese)
-Good snowfall
-Cheap
-Interesting runs and lots of ungroomed areas
-Low competition for powder
-slow lifts
-lots of flat traversing to get back to the bottom of the lifts
-seems small after skiing at Nozawa
Madarao Kogen went broke a couple of years ago and the entire resort and hotel were purchased for a bargain basement price. They are trying to revive the resort by targetting families and beginners, and this seems to be breathing a bit of life back into the place. It gets good snow (there was more fresh at Madarao than there was at Nozawa the day I went, and Madarao had good falls yesterday evening when Nozawa just got a sprinkling), and the lack of powder hounds and plentiful ungroomed steep intermediate runs were good fun. The annoyingly placed and slow lift system were a big minus - also there is not a huge variety of runs.
Nozawa Onsen Snow Report – Wednesday
New Snow (Resort): 5cm
New Snow (Village): 2cm
Weather: overcast
Snow Depth: 245cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Light snow expected tonight and moderate snow expected tomorrow.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura and Hachiman which probably won’t be open again this season.
It is a grey old day in the village at the moment. Low cloud is shrouding the mountain and visibility is poor on all but the bottom slopes. We were expecting reasonable snow yesterday evening, however only a few centimetres fell in the village.
The forecast calls for warm temperatures and a mixture of rain in the village and light snow on the mountain over the next week.
Nozawa Onsen Snow Report – Monday
New Snow (Resort): 40cm
New Snow (Village): 30cm
Weather: light snow
Snow Depth: 240cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Light snow expected tonight and moderate snow expected tomorrow.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura and Hachiman which probably won’t be open again this season.
Snow starved boarders and skiers were abuzz in the village last night with news of about 10cm of snow to fall on Yamabiko. It started snowing late in the evening, and by this morning knee deep snow had accumulated. It continued snowing on and off throughout the day and conditions were fantastic. Not only were conditions great, but numbers were down considerably from last week, and the trees gave up fresh lines all day long.
Lower down the mountain on Challenge there was about 20cm of fresh, the icy base was ever present though and not really deep enough to enjoy at its best.
The forecast is for light snow overnight and then more moderate snow from tomorrow evening.
Nozawa Onsen Snow Report – Sunday
New Snow (Resort): 0cm
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: fine
Snow Depth: 215cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Moderate snow expected tonight.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura and Hachiman which probably won’t be open again this season.
It’s another fine day in Nozawa today. There are clouds creeping in which we hope will bring snow this evening. There has been no significant fall over the last week now, so even a few centimetres to freshen things up a little will be very welcome. The weekend traffic already seems to be on the decline after last weeks peak.
After snowfall tonight and tomorrow we are expecting warm weather conditions to return. Around town the roofs are no longer covered in snow, grass is showing, plants are sprouting, and snow covered rice paddies are melting at pace. The end winter is always a little bit sad, and this year it has happened far too early! We should still have lots of good spring skiing and can still keep up the hope that winter has one last gasp left.
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