Nozawa Holidays

Base up top: 440 cm    Temp Top; -4 Degrees Base at bottom; 225 cm New Snow since close: 0 cm Weather; Clear   The world renowned Nozawa Onsen top to bottom downhill race took off during the early hours of this morning with a scintillating field of contenders flooding the village from all areas of the globe. With firm and fast snow conditions, the field made the short work of the one hundred meters dash to the strap in point at the top of the slopes. Light winds established a quick split of skiers and boarders and it was clear those who put much effort in their waxing held a high advantage in this regard. The lightning fast velocity […]

Base up top: 445 cm    Temp Top; -7 Degrees Base at bottom; 225 cm New Snow since close: 10-15 cm Weather; Clear   Continuing on the trend of excellency this week we have had a further top up of 10-15cm overnight. Looks like we will have yet another day of epic pow. It is the weekend so expect crowds to be slightly higher than what we have had this week however the sun is well and truly out; there is beautiful clear weather up top. Good compensation in this regard. Today will be the last day for some time with mid winter style snow. From tomorrow we should expect a gradual but dramatic increase in the freezing level spiralling […]

Welcome the New Shinkansen Train The long awaited Shinkansen Train running from Tokyo to nearby Iiyama starts tomorrow 14th of March 2015! There is an air of excitement in the village, the Nozawa Onsen Liner has already started doing the 20-minute run down to the Iiyama Station and all is set to go down there. The faster Bullet trains will be 1 Hour and 40 minutes from Tokyo or Ueno Station to Iiyama so looking at just over 2 hours all up to get to Nozawa Onsen! Here is a link to the timetables Getting To Nozawa Onsen With still almost 450cm of snow and the season running until May 6th the decision to come up for a ski holiday […]

Base up top: 445 cm    Temp Top; -7 Degrees Base at bottom; 250 cm New Snow since close: dusting Weather; Mostly fine   How can it still be so good? After the lacklustre final 10 days of winter many had given up hope of fresh snow of enough significance to improve riding conditions back to mid winter levels. In this case patience has paid off and we are currently experiencing one of the best weeks of the season, mostly facilitated by the entire lack of crowds. Yesterday was extremely good, certainly one of the best days of the season, deep dry powder that was effortless the glide through in combination with sun between the drifting snow clouds. Just perfect. […]

Base up top: 440 cm    Temp Top; -8 Degrees Base at bottom; 230 cm New Snow since close: 3-10 cm Weather; Snow   Its still coming down here in Nozawa Onsen. Looking out the window this morning will incite no shortage of excitement for powder enthusiast with persistent moderate snow accumulating 10cm of fresh since last lifts yesterday. The word of the day today will be ‘epic’. Yesterday we saw some superb conditions, certainly the best in recent memory, probably since mid February at least. Deep but not bottomless powder snow blanketed the resort once more creating a blank canvas to work upon. The snow was in excellent conditions all day with cold temperatures and light to moderate winds. […]

Base up top: 445 cm    Temp Top; -7 Degrees Base at bottom; 230 cm New Snow since close: 40 cm Weather; Snow   Over the last few weeks in Nozawa Onsen we have been through several storm cycles that had shown much promise, according to forecasts, but failed to deliver snowfalls of any significance. Im pleased to say that this run of over expectations has well and truly finished. Since late yesterday afternoon the snow has fallen thick and fast with overnight accumulations pushing up towards the 40cm mark on the upper reaches of the mountain. Snow to village level has also been significant with 20cm of collection at 600m above sea level. Safe to say the riding will […]

Base up top: 410 cm    Temp Top; -4 Degrees Base at bottom; 220 cm New Snow since close: 20 cm Weather; Snow   Snow has fallen once more in Nozawa Onsen. 20cm has collected on the upper mountain while around 5cm has accumulated in the village. Heavy rain fell in town last night, however this obviously fell as snow from mid mountain and the upper elevations. Expect the snow on the upper slopes to be wind packed with a denser consistency than normal. Wind strength for today has been downgraded to moderate levels with snowfall totals for the next 24 hours receiving an upgrade. A win win situation. Yesterday we experienced some more quality spring conditions. Although overcast, the […]

Base up top: 395 cm    Temp Top; 0 Degrees Base at bottom; 220 cm New Snow since close: 0 cm Weather; Overcast   Today we have a fairly windy, overcast but dry morning. The freezing level is sitting high, at around the same elevation as the peak of Nozawa Onsen, Mt Kenashi. As a result predominantly soft and slushy snow will feature on the hill today. Well groomed pistes again will be the best bet and the less ridden slopes will be stickier. We may experience some precipitation in the form of prefrontal rain showers later in the day but these will only be light and localised. Yesterday was an awesome day for spring skiing. The slopes were soft […]

Base up top: 400 cm    Temp Top; -3 Degrees Base at bottom; 225 cm New Snow since close: 0 cm Weather; Overcast   The latest forecast is in and since this time yesterday we have seen predictions make some incremental upgrades to both snowfall amounts and wind strength for next weeks series of fronts. This could be one of the last prolonged period of very cold and snowy weather for the season, at this stage we are expecting just under a week of cold conditions with snowfalls. Snowfalls are expected to be heaviest Monday night, Tuesday and then again on Wednesday night. Heavy falls are expected during the subsequent time periods with lighter falls mixed between. Will this weeks […]

Base up top: 400 cm    Temp Top; 2 Degrees Base at bottom; 225 cm New Snow since close: 0 cm Weather; Overcast   Its been a cool morning so far but with a warm inflow of southerly winds and some incident sun rays impacting the snow we should find conditions softening through the afternoon, if it hasn’t already. Groomed runs will be in excellent condition, almost as good as they get if the weekend crowds are ignored. The park and pipe are also in fine form. Off piste is still extremely variable and best avoided for today; south facing aspects will fare better. Yesterday in Nozawa Onsen we had some beautiful clear weather and almost perfect temperatures for spring […]