Good morning from Yuzawa.

It was raining last night but higher up the mountains have received more snowfall overnight. Kagura are reporting 15cm which is great to hear. It is just cloudy now (few spots of rain lingering here) and generally cloudy conditions are forecast for the day, with a chance of clearer skies over the weekend.

Kagura remains open with their 600m course available. No details available just yet, but there is a chance of some adjustments to operations for the weekend. I will update this report later today if I have any new information.

Joetsu Kokusai traditionally plan on opening up around now (first part of December), and 'traditionally' they are not able to... this season is no different. I think that their 'planned opening date' is more of a kind of placeholder than an expectation of actually being able to open on that day. Points for being positive though! They are basically on standby to open when the snow arrives.

Last night on the local television they had a piece featuring Maiko Snow Resort. They were talking about covid-19 measures and expectations for the season. Apparently, they have spent over 1 million yen on covid-19 prevention measures like signs, partitions, etc. Obviously, that's budget that you don't want to be spending. Generally it seems like ski areas are going to be limiting people in gondolas and lifts to group members, ask for people to wear masks and do the social distancing thing as much as possible. But generally open as normal.

The piece also mentioned a new scheme being introduced by Niigata government this winter called ONI-wari (ONI割). This promises cheaper lift tickets for visitors and should be available later this month. The details are still being finalised - we will let you know more about it in a later report.

We don't want to dwell on covid-19 stuff in our daily reports, but we will mention it when it is appropriate.

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Operating lifts:

- Mitsumata Ropeway (8:00am until 4:30pm)
- Mitsumata Number 1 quad lift (8:00am until 2:30pm)
- Mitsumata Number 2 romance lift (8:15am until 4:00pm)
- Kagura Gondola (8:15am until 3:45pm)
- Kagura Number 1 romance lift (8:30am until 3:15pm)

Courses open:

- Kagura main course
- 600m in length, 30m wide

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Planned opening dates for ski areas in the region

Below are the planned opening dates of ski areas in Yuzawa and Minamiuonuma. All are of course subject to change.


Opening from today (Wednesday 2nd December):
- Kagura (via Mitsumata)

As soon as there is enough snow
- Joetsu Kokusai

Saturday 12th December 2020
- GALA Yuzawa
- Kagura (via Tashiro)

Friday 18th December 2020
- Ishiuchi Maruyama
- Maiko Snow Resort

Saturday 19th December 2020
- Kandatsu Snow Resort
- Naeba
- Nakazato Snow Wood
- Yuzawa Kogen
- Yuzawa Nakazato

Thursday 24th December 2020
- Iwappara
- NASPA Ski Garden

Friday 25th December 2020
- Ipponsugi
- Muica Snow Resort
- Muikamachi Hakkaisan
- Yuzawa Park

Saturday 26th December 2020
- Chateau Shiozawa
- Hakkai Sanroku

Details currently unconfirmed
- Itsukamachi
- Mt Granview

Closed during the 2020-2021 winter season
- Ishiuchi Hanaoka

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Photos:

- Kagura (Mitsumata Ropeway)
- Yuzawa Kogen
- Route 17 close to Yuzawa IC exit