Hakuba Now: Saturday 16th January 2016
- Jan 16, 2016
- 4 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Hakuba region of Nagano
New snowfall at base 3cm
Snowfall at base this season 101cm
Posted on Saturday 16th January 2016 This is an archived report. The latest Hakuba Now report can be found here.
Morning from Hakuba and again this morning resorts reporting 1-5cm of snow on their slopes. Over the last week or so we have seen a bit of snow on most days, even though the numbers have been fairly low.
It felt cold up there on the slopes yesterday with a bit of a strong wind at times. Light snow was falling when I was up at Hakuba 47 and it was pretty decent.
This morning there's lots of cloud around and while it was snowing earlier on, it has eased now and the sun is shining down through my window as I type this. Feels like it is going to clear up.
Everyone remains very excited and expectant about the heavy snow that lies ahead according to the forecasts. It's still looking good to happen - heavy snow is due Monday through Wednesday along with some very cold temperatures. Proper mid-winter conditions. Please!
A few more courses have been opening up at Hakuba Iwatake resort - at last they have part of the Village Side open, though it is still very limited.
If the forecasts are right though, things will have changed considerably by the middle of the coming week. Let's just hope we don't get disappointed!
Can you guess just how much I want to wipe off all of the lift operation details from this report and be able to tell you that 'everywhere is open as normal'. A lot! I bet everyone reading this wants exactly that too. I still can't quite believe I'm having to go through all that checking every morning, here in the middle of January...
Hakuba 47:
Hakuba 47 is reporting 2cm of fresh snowfall on lower areas and 5cm on upper areas.
All courses are now officially open.
Tree Riding Zone not yet open for the season.
Official snow depth
Upper: 155cm
Base: 30cm
Hakuba Goryu:
Hakuba Goryu is reporting 5cm of fresh snowfall at Iimori and 3cm on upper areas.
Panorama, Grand Prix, Super Course, Champion Dynamic and Woody Courses in upper area; the main Toomi course and the Soft Cream and Merry Land courses in the Iimori area are planned to be open.
Planned lifts:
Telecabin Gondola
Alps Number 1 pair lift
Alps Number 3 pair lift
Alps Number 2/4 pair lift
Toomi Sky Four lift
Toomi Number 1 pair lift
Toomi Number 2 pair lift
Milky Four lift
Iimori Number 1 high speed pair
Official snow depth
Alps: 155cm
Toomi: 50cm
Iimori: 45cm
Hakuba Happo-one:
Hakuba Happo-one is reporting 5cm of new snowfall.
Grat (part), Usagidaira, Kurobishi, Panorama, Skyline, Kita One Number 3 and Riesen Slalom areas are open with lower course areas still closed.
Take one of the Gondola, Kokusai Number 1 pair, Sakka Kita-one quad or Nakiyama Number 3 triple lifts to get back down to base.
Planned lifts:
Adam Gondola
Grat quad lift
Alpen quad lift
Usagidaira pair lift
Happo Riesen quad
Nakiyama Number 3 triple
Kurobishi Number 2 quad lift
Kurobishi Number 3 pair lift
Skyline Number 2 pair lift
Kokusai Number 1 lift
Kokusai Number 3 lift
Panorama pair lift
Kita One quad lift
Kita One Number 3 pair lift
Official snow depth
Usagidaira: 110cm
Nakiyama: 35cm
Sakka: 15cm
Hakuba Cortina:
Hakuba Cortina reporting 1cm of fresh snowfall.
The courses at Cortina that remain closed are: Mt Hieda Ridge, Mt Hieda 2 and 3, Itadaria Ridge and Giant.
All other courses are now open.
Planned lifts:
All lifts apart from Number 7 pair lift now operating
Official snow depth
Top: 135cm
Base: 75cm
Tsugaike Kogen:
Most areas of Tsugaike Kogen are now at least part open.
Planned lifts:
Almost all of the lifts at Tsugaike Kogen are now operating.
Official snow depth
Tsuga-no-mori: 139cm
Maruyama: 40cm
Kane-no-naru-oka: 30cm
Hakuba Iwatake Snow Field:
Reporting up to 5cm of fresh snowfall.
The View C, View D, North and East courses on Mountain Side are currently open; also now part of Sunny and Gezan.
Limited parts of the Village Side are also opening up (part of Sunny Valley, Paradise and by1).
Planned lifts:
Noah Gondola
View 2
3Sen Line North
4Sen Line East
Line Lift
Official snow depth
Upper: 80cm
Lower: 20cm
Hakuba Norikura Onsen:
Official snow depth
50cm
All lifts apart from Number 8 lift are operating and 8 of the 12 courses are open at Hakuba Norikura Onsen.
Hakuba Sanosaka:
Official snow depth
25cm
Part open with the Number 1 triple lift, Number 2 quad and Number 5 pair lifts operating.
Hakuba Now 2015-2016 season |
Data as of Saturday 16th January 2016 Total snowfall at base so far 101cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 18 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 15cm (4th December) November 2015 snowfall 10cm reported on 1 day December 2015 snowfall 54cm reported on 8 days January 2016 snowfall 37cm reported on 9 days |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Hakuba. The 'new snowfall' number represents the amount of snow measured since the previous report. All opinions are those of the individual reporters. Information regarding ski area operations is manually checked every morning and is believed to be correct at the time of the report.