Nozawa Onsen looking nice and green. This photo from August was taken by Minoru from Masazo, who along with most other villagers ventures up the mountain during the off season to collect wild vegetables.
Heading into autumn fiery reds and oranges will be taking over the mountain. It’s not too long until we see some snow up there as well. The opening date for the 2009/10 season has been announced, the lifts are due to start running on November 21st. Because Nozawa Onsen has no artificial snowmaking whatsoever, Mother Nature needs to come to the party.
By the looks of this graph, they have been able to get things underway pretty near the start of December or before with good consistency. The official opening of the mountain is usually around the 20th of December, when full lift operations will begin.