Good morning from Nozawa Onsen, and welcome back to our Nozawa Now reports.

It’s a chilly Friday morning, 10th November 2017.

It certainly does not feel like it was six months ago when I posted my last report from the 2016-2017 season. Since that report we’ve had a rather uneven summer with probably more than our share of rain and less sun and clear skies than we usually get. I think that’s the story for the wider region and perhaps even most of Japan too.

Anyway, we are now just over two weeks away from the planned opening date of Nozawa Onsen… that planned opening being on Saturday 25th November. Obviously, that is going to depend on the weather and snowfall. If you look back at the archive reporting (links below) from previous season, you’ll be able to see how often Nozawa gets to open on that planned late November opening date. I highly recommend a read through reports from previous seasons.

We have had some snowfall on the mountain already, and as you can see from the images below there’s a bit of snow remaining up on the top slopes at the moment.

The sun is out this morning and it looks like it should be a fine day, though it won’t get much warmer than 12 degrees during the daytime.

I believe the biggest resort news for the upcoming season is the new course area that has been developed to connect the E Course on the top Yamabiko area with the top of the Skyline course. This change will mean that you won’t need to get the Skyline connecting pair when you want to ride the Skyline course. Sounds good to me and I am really looking forward to checking it out.

Can’t wait for the season to start now and highly anticipating a bumper snow season here in Nozawa.

I’ll be here with you every day once the lifts get moving and will post some updates over the next few weeks as that planned opening approaches.

Planned opening date
Saturday 25th November 2017