skiwi

Haha thats right mate, Treble Cone certainly has some nice steeps and chutes... suffice to say Treble Cone and cruizy don't usually go in the same sentence.

Awesome stuff Mike. Much appreciated! Keep it coming! Great to see the season has got off to such a great start. Enjoy!

Niseko 17-25 Feb Wait was between 0-25min. 25min waits were for gondola and Ace 4 quad lift (bottom lift) on busy mornings and when upper mountain was closed. Other Niseko resorts were very uncrowded. no queues Was surprised at some of the queues in Hirafu as in Jan 2010 we had no queues at all. Sometimes it felt a little like queuing at home in NZ. Overall still worthwhile though.

I did it in Feb and had no problems

Hi You can call the welcome centre and book return bus tickets to Rusutsu. Costs 1000 yen each way. Bus leaves in morning at about 8.30ish and leaves Rusutsu at 4.28pm.Cheers

Yea i saw that myself yesterday. WOW! If that comes off the season will be well and truely underway. Unfortunately its still a week away...fingers crossed

Hi sand. i normally look at this one. Although a little German is needed http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavnoas.html Alternatively http://www.weatheronline.co.nz/cgi-bin/e...MO=&PERIOD= is a good model. I normally find 850 temps of -5 or below and dewpoints of less than 0 are a good starting point for snow in Niseko (to village level)

I hope you are right!!! Looks marginal at best in the north to me after heavy rain but i have to admit the last couple of runs on the weather models im looking at look a bit better for mid to late next week!!

The next week doesn't look great over Japan. Best chance of any real snowfalls are in southern Japan's ski resorts later in the week. Hokkiado especailly will struggle over the next week with plenty of rain at village level at many resorts extending to many of the peaks for a time. Can't be to long now before things change....soon it'll be Christmas

Hi First decent fall will be Sun the 28th and Mon the 29th. Should be enough to lay down a base and get the season started. However, warmer after that so may melt....Lets hope not

Looks like a significant system will finally effect Niseko on the 28-30th ish of Nov. So expect the lifts to be open around the last day of Nov/1st of Dec at this stage

The Siberian high shows litte sign of becoming dominant over the next week. Unfortuately until this happens there is little prospect of any prolonged cold or snow to get the season under way. Do you know why this is the case this year GN? Is it a common feature of La Nina?

Starting to look increasingly likely the first snow to village level at Niseko will be the 26/27th of Oct. It'll be gret to see things turn white on the webcams for the first time!

Great post GN. Summed up the situation perfectly.

Yea I looked through the past few years. It just seemed that the most consistent dumps were mid dec-beginning of feb and then snowfalls became lighter and more interspread. If not thats fantastic news! Thanks for your help!