Ski Japan Guide

Hi Ursula Yes GALA is having to postpone opening. Kagura has some of the top runs open, and trying hard to open more, while Naeba does the same. Other resorts in the town are all closed - about 0-10cm of snow on the slopes at town level. Hope that helps.....

Hi Mikey Mike Take a look at this for more on that.... Click here

It is RAINING HARD here in Yuzawa, Niigata. Should be turning into snow tonight and into tomorrow. Good to hear the snow is coming down up there! Enjoy it.....

No strong language please Enjoy the winter folks

Apologies for the delay "wizart" and others looking for the Niseko reports. The page has been updated. Thanks Ski Japan Guide

We have just called the resort to find out the latest and they have a few limited lifts running. Central, Paradise, Utopia gelendes have according to the resort 45cm of snow, with 4 lifts servicing the runs. Hope that helps. Enjoy your time if you go up there, and please do post a Review when you get back! Let us all know! Thanks Ski Japan Guide

No favoritism for either skiers or snowboarders here, danz. The Chairman seems to have another point of view, but that's what he's all about anyway. Very lighthearted feature in the run up to the season as the vast majority of us are waiting for that snow to arrive. Feel free to send in your own skiers-flavored feature at any time. As always, the views of the article writer may not be the same as that of SJG. Enjoy!

paint baller.... Hakkoda actually opened yesterday with between 50cm-80cm near the top according to the resort. The ropeway and some of the courses are open. Hope that helps! Editor Ski Japan Guide

Thanks for posting big-will. I'm sure the kind people over at The Japan Times won't mind that being posted on the Forum - it was great to see them cover Japan winter sports in a big way yesterday. Good stuff. Have a good one! Andrew Ski Japan Guide

Only one lift to start moving for Hirafu's opening tomorrow. The Alpen #3 lift will be in action from 9am. #3 lift is located above Alpen's Supercourse run. Everyone will have to take the Supercourse lift up, but then will also have to catch the Supercourse lift back down again. Due to lack of snow, no boarding or skiing will be allowed on the Supercourse tomorrow. Thanks to Ben.

On 1st and 2nd of December, the X Trail Jam event will be held in Tokyo Dome. As well as a full day of competition on the jumps, there will be live music and hopefully a good time to be had. Check out the website for more (in Japanese): http://x-trailjam.ocn.ne.jp

New giveaway is now online. Click here to go to the Specials page and enter! Good luck!

We just called the resort for you Colquhoun, and sorry to say it's bad news.... They have about 10cm at the top, but no snow at the base and they said that opening on the 23rd was "chotto muri" (read "no way"!). The current mild and sunny weather looks like it will continue for another few days, so looks like we must wait a bit longer. Thanks Ski Japan Guide

Some of us from up here in the mountains might be down there in Tokyo then so would be on for a night out! Keep us updated.....

hello graham thanks for posting. we did of course conduct cross-browser testing. some features that are available on Explorer, which the large majority of users actually use, are not available in Netscape - we said that when we relaunched. Unfortunately, when you have a complex site like SJG, certain decisions must be made. However, most of the site should be fine though, so if you do have any specific problems with anything, please send a mail directly to us at tech@skijapanguide.com and we will look into it. Thanks [This message has been edited by Ski Japan Guide (ed

Just to quickly answer your main question, Eriond, the resorts in Shiga Kogen are all linked and you can use 1 lift ticket for all of them. The confusing part is that they are all in effect separate resorts with different names, but to the skier/boarder you should think of them as one as you can ride all the slopes together. In their listings however they tell people how many lifts and courses that their particular resort has, not the total for the Shiga Kogen resort area. We will try to make that more clear in the near future on the site..... Good luck and enjoy Japan!

Details of our second giveaway for the season are now online here . This time it's a holiday for 2 at the Club Med resort in Sahoro, Hokkaido - ski lift tickets, food, drink etc all included! We are also happy to announce that from now on throughout the season we will be having giveaways on a WEEKLY basis. Again, more information here . Good luck! Ski Japan Guide [This message has been edited by Ski Japan Guide (edited 14 November 2001).]

Funny isn't it?! They seem to keep on moving it about to the mountain and other "views" which adds to the fun! But we want to put as many snow views as possible up on the site this season, so hope it makes some sense to have it up there. More coming soon!

Unfortunately, where they point the cam is beyond our control.....but hopefully they will keep it pointed on the snow for most of the time! SJG

Hi Cockny The little blue logo in your browser is something we added as a "present" (!) to those of you who bookmark Ski Japan Guide. If you do bookmark any page on the site, when you next open your browser you should see the logo in your favorites folder and also in your browsers text window when you are at the site. Hope that explains it! Makes it worth adding to your Favorites folder, don't you think?! Enjoy the site. Ski Japan Guide [This message has been edited by Ski Japan Guide (edited 09 November 2001).]

Hi Jeff Thanks for posting on the board. Unfortunately we can't really help you out on this one. Contacts is the word that's important, but resorts will already be sorted for this season. Probably best to approach some resort - in Japanese - and show them what you can do. Whether they will listen or not is a different matter....but we wish you the best of luck. Please let us know if you get anywhere.. Thanks Ski Japan Guide

Another announcement! Our first giveaway campaign for the season is now online - and this is just the first of many over the coming weeks and months. In this pre-season giveaway, we have 10 one-day lift tickets for the Iwappara resort in Yuzawa Town, Niigata Prefecture (worth 5,000 yen each). Go here to find out more and how you can enter......good luck!

Thanks for all the feedback about the new site. Apart from the snow arriving, there's lots to look forward to on the site. From today, our Hakuba Now! page on Ski Japan Guide features webcam images from Hakuba - the village, Happo-one resort and Hakuba Iwatake resort. The images are updated a number of times a day, so you can keep up with the weather and conditions in Hakuba. Enjoy!

Thanks for the comments. Glad to hear that you are faster now tetumn. Janet. Yes, we have made the settings so that the submenus are not working on Netscape for a number of reasons. The site is better suited to Explorer than Netscape - sorry......And sorry if it's being slower with you, and glad you like the design. Hope you continue to enjoy it anyway.

Hi Jane Thanks for posting. The site is in fact not "slower than last year". The difference is that the new site has been completely recoded and redesigned from scratch and so on your first visits it may take more time than you are used to using skijapanguide for all the new code to download. Once you have been to the site a few times, then it should not take much time to browse from then on. You should find that it will get quicker as you use it. In development we have done everything possible to keep the sizes down, whilst at the same time adding all the new features we (and ou