Just an update, because, yes, you can ski in Myoko. Did I write that already? This weather is confusing me a bit. A friend climbed Mt. Iizuna, just south of Mt. Kurohime (to the south of Mt. Myoko), and found that, while it was mostly late spring conditions, it also snowed up high. Snow looks like it might fall again later today (and thunder, rain, winds....). Always something interesting going on with the weather.

Lotte Arai is still going, still says 195cm, and not sure about the closing, but they were planning to go to mid-month.

So that's about it. I'll add my year-end round-up below. If anything comes up, I'll get back on; otherwise, I'll see you somewhere around November when we get information on the 2021-22 season!

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What can you say when the whole world is affected by a viral pandemic? Seems small to complain, and I'll give the resort people I've talked to credit: everybody knows how tough it's been, but everyone also basically says, "Well, what can you do?" The Japanese version of a stiff upper lip, we'll tough it out, etc. And they're right. We didn't have a major outbreak of corona here, no one died from infection, we did get to see friends once in a while, and local shops and restaurants put in all the necessary countermeasures.

The weather, though, was more problematic. After the really disastrous low snow of the 2019-20 season, we had good snow this year. I skied some of the best, lightest, nicest powder I've had in far too many years here. I actually got to use my big monster machines to clear the snow on many occasions, which was oddly satisfying (I'm obviously moving quickly into snow-obsessed ojisan). So we had snow.

It was the cycles of snow and cold then warm/sun/rain that was troubling. I'll ask what lots of locals said out loud: is this what the future holds? That, and a March with basically no fresh snow. The level around the house today is more like a normal late April, not late March. Those cycles aren't just annoying for us who would like the snow to just keep falling like in the past. There are a lot more layers forming in the snow, so the danger of avalanches could be higher, too. This year there weren't that many people out in the backcountry, but some of my friends did set off some slides, saw a lot of strange stuff, etc. Luckily they're locally knowledgeable and cautious, but if powder fever takes over.... Hmmmm.

So this season ends with a whimper, but there wasn't much yelling going on at any time in the season. All the resorts will be back next year; hopefully we'll all get jabs in the arm and be virus-proofed and we can do things like shake hands and have a beer without a plastic barrier between us. The mountain, as always, is great. Even when it's not a great ski day, I can always look around the Myoko peaks and just enjoy the beauty of this place. Pick the right day for the skiing, enjoy the life if not exactly like it was 25 years ago (but I'm not the same skier I was 25 years ago....)

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End of season general message from SnowJapan
This message is being posted on all of the Now daily reports
Added 5th May 2021

First of all, we hope that you and yours are keeping well.

What another strange season 2020-2021 has been.

In terms of snow and conditions, the story of the season can be found in the respective reports. Each region had its own story, of course, but it was certainly great to be able to get back to reporting some heavy snowfall this time round. Spring did once again seem to arrive earlier than we would like, but those fortunate enough to be able to enjoy the snow were able to experience some very fine conditions.

Challenges

Ski areas around Japan made various efforts to deal with the covid-19 situation and while there were some changes to operations here and there, most were able to open for the season. Some ski areas and regions have been affected more than others, but it’s probably safe to say that is has been a challenging period for pretty much everyone involved. In particular, destinations that have enjoyed a lot of foreign visitors in recent years have probably felt a big shock.

Perhaps inevitably, there has been a generally more subdued atmosphere and feel to the season.

Decisions

We made a few decisions before the winter started.

Unfortunately, it was getting obvious that international travel restrictions would be preventing people from entering Japan over the 2020-2021 season. And it was clearly going to be a great disappointment to many.

Even so, we wanted to keep SnowJapan updated as close to normal as possible. We asked our reporters to mention ‘the news’ when it seemed appropriate, but not to dwell on it too much. After all, people are not coming to SnowJapan to read about covid every day. We hope we got that difficult balance right.

Daily reports and updates are an important part of the site. They are popular with people while they are visiting Japan, but people also read our archive reports to see how previous seasons turned out and to make comparisons. Indeed, this last season we have noticed that a lot of you have been following from overseas – even if you weren’t able to come and enjoy the snow in person.

We would like to say a big public thank you to the reporters who did another fine job covering the 2020-2021 winter season on SnowJapan, in some challenging circumstances. Thanks to those efforts, we have another full season of data to add to our records.

Hopefully that information will continue to be of value to people making plans for a future visit to Japan.

Questions

The world knows much more about covid-19 in May 2021 than it did in April 2020, but in some ways we end this season with some of the same questions we were asking last year…

Everyone wants to know what the situation will be in six months’ time. There’s definitely brighter wider news and reasons to be positive, but big questions remain on how ‘open’ Japan might be for overseas visitors by the time the snow starts falling again.

No-one knows, of course.

Like last year, all we can do is try to keep a positive mindset and hope that progress will be made, and that overseas friends will be able to visit once again.

Looking Ahead

Whatever happens regarding the international travel situation, SnowJapan plans to be here reporting the 2021-2022 winter season.

2020-2021 might now be over, but as usual we are busy working on various stuff for the future. We’ll let you know what we’re up to later in the year.

In the meantime, if you are interested in old ski areas from the past around Japan, the SnowJapanHistory (www.snowjapanhistory.com) website will continue to be updated regularly. Over there you can find details on over 160 ski areas, including at least one that closed back in the 1960s (!)

Anyway, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading and your support. If you want to get in touch, as always you can contact us using this form.

Wherever you are in the world, stay safe… and we’ll see you later in the year.

(Hopefully with good news!)