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Hakuba Now: Saturday 23rd December 2017

  • Dec 23, 2017
  • 4 min read

Independent snow and weather reporting from the Hakuba region of Nagano


New snowfall at base 5cm
Snowfall at base this season 145cm

Posted on Saturday 23rd December 2017 This is an archived report. The latest Hakuba Now report can be found here.


Another beautiful day yesterday.


Lots of updates have been made to the resort specific lists this morning (below), so be sure to check them out.


The main headlines:


- The Grat quad lift and top course at Happo-one is now open

- All of Goryu-47 is now open, including the Iimori area

- The Tree Riding Zone at Hakuba 47 is now open


This morning there's 5cm of fresh snow to report though curiously the resorts aren't reporting much - Cortina are mentioning just 2cm, Goryu are mentioning 0cm (!) and 47 report 10cm. Perhaps due to the snow starting early morning. But anyway a bit of a layer of fresh snow out there. Snow cover is not a problem but we could do with some more...


So what about heavy snowfall? This coming week shows lots of exciting potential with heavy snowfall due to be with us from tomorrow night or Monday morning - and it's due to continue for at least a few days. We should be a getting a lot of snow out of this, so we can look forward to renewed excellent conditions.


Before that, sun is on the forecast for tomorrow (and perhaps later today) --- the calm before the storm, hopefully.


Enjoy your day.


Hakuba Happo-one


Operating lifts:

- Gondola Adam

- Alpen quad lift

- Hakuba Riesen quad lift

- Nakiyama Number 3 triple lift

- Panorama pair lift

- Kokusai Number 1 pair lift

- Kokusai Number 3 pair lift

- Kurobishi Number 2 quad lift

- Skyline Number 2 pair lift

- Sakka Kita-one quad lift

- Sakka Number 2 pair lift


Courses open:

- Majority of course areas are now at least part open

- Areas still closed: Kurobishi off-piste, Nakiyama Wall, Nakiyama North, Central, Shirakaba North


Official snow depth:

- Kurobishi: 175cm

- Usagidaira: 120cm

- Lower: 55cm


Hakuba Goryu


Operating lifts:

- Goryu Telecabin (gondola)

- Alps Number 1 pair lift

- Alps Number 3 pair lift

- Toomi Sky four lift

- Toomi Number 1 pair lift

- Toomi Number 2 pair lift

- Milky four lift

- Number 1 high speed pair lift

- Number 6 pair lift

- Cosmo four lift


Courses open:

- All courses apart from Cosmo River, Straight Whisky, Snow Diving and Adventure are open


Official snow depth:

- Top: 205cm

- Toomi: 70cm

- Iimori: 40cm


Hakuba 47


Operating lifts:

- Line 8 Gondola

- Line AB pair lift

- Line C quad lift

- Line E high speed pair lift


Courses open:

- All main courses are open

- The Tree Riding Zone is now open (Gate 3 closed)


Official snow depth:

- Top: 185cm

- Base: 60cm


Tsugaike Kogen


Operating lifts:

- Most lifts now operating


Courses open:

- All courses areas apart from Champion and Kane-no-naru-oka 2 are now open


Official snow depth:

- Tsuga-no-mori: 170cm

- Han-no-ki: 170cm

- Maruyama: 50cm

- Shirakaba: 60cm

- Oya-no-hara: 45cm

- Kane-no-naru-oka: 40cm


Hakuba Cortina


Operating lifts:

- Number 1 pair lift

- Number 2 quad lift

- Number 3 lift

- Number 4 pair lift

- Number 6 lift


Courses open:

- Ikenota

- Hieda Forest

- Mt Hieda 1

- Mt Hieda 2

- Mt Hieda 3

- Itadaira

- Ipponmatsu

- Rabbit

- Snake (confirming)


Official snow depth:

- Top: 168cm

- Base: 90cm


Hakuba Iwatake Snow Field


Operating lifts:

- Gondola

- View 2

- 4 East

- 5 South

- Paradise triple

- Line


Courses open:

- View C

- View D

- East

- South

- Gezan

- Sunny Valley (part)

- Paradise (part)

- by1 (part)

- by2 (part)


Official snow depth:

- Top: 100cm

- Base: 30cm


Hakuba Norikura Onsen


Operating lifts:

- Alps Number 4 pair lift

- Alps Number 5 high speed pair lift


Official snow depth:

- 80cm


Hakuba Valley Kashimayari


Operating lifts:

- Number 1 quad lift

- Number 2 pair lift

- Number 3 quad lift

- Number 5 pair lift

- Number 6 quad lift

- Number 7 pair lift


Official snow depth:

- 60cm


Hakuba Sanosaka


Operating lifts:

- Number 3 quad lift


Official snow depth:

- 70cm



Hakuba Now 2017-2018 season

Data as of Saturday 23rd December 2017 Total snowfall at base so far 145cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 16 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 23cm (21st November) November 2017 snowfall 47cm reported on 5 days December 2017 snowfall 98cm reported on 11 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.


SnowJapan is an entirely independent operation. Our daily reports are not posted on behalf of ski areas or any other business or organisation. Since first going online in 1999, the integrity of this website has always been our top priority, and it is something we are not prepared to compromise. All content is carefully created and written by humans who share a passion for the subject and what SnowJapan stands for.



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