REPORT

The snow storm warning was issued in Nakano Iiyama areas in the afternoon yesterday. In Nozawa, it was snowing so heavily and the officially-announced snow amount reached over 300cm for the first time this season! There was a long line at Nagasaka Gondola station (Photo). The snow falling strongly got weak at around 8:00 a.m. and we could see the blue sky sometimes in the village area.
[Nagasaka Gondola Bottom Station]

Although the lower areas of Nozawa Onsen, which has a vast ski area of 297ha, are also worth introducing, I couldn’t help myself and came up to Yamabiko Area, because the official website showed “70cm of Fresh Snow” in Yamabiko Area. When I dropped off into the off-piste slope of Yamabiko B Course, there was a great floating feeling of fluffy snow (70cm, no jokes!) on my foot!
[Yamabiko Slope・B Course]

A skier who fell down just in front of me talked, “Hi, Snownavi. The fresh snow is never heavy, so I enjoy it greatly. Anyway, it is surprisingly deep.” The nicely firm groomed slopes of Yamabiko D Course and E Course (Photo) were covered with 5cm of fresh snow and in good condition.
[Yamabiko Slope・E Course]

In contrast to the bottom areas, the dry snow was falling heavily in the upper areas in the cold west wind, so my facemask got frozen there. Uenotaira, Paradise and Utopia B Course (Photo) were “nicely firm groomed slopes of good snow + 1-5cm of dry fresh snow”. We could also enjoy powdery snow runs in the off-piste slopes of Utopia A (Photo) and Challenge where there was 40-50cm of fresh but a little wet snow.
[Utopia B Course]

* On 3/23 (Sat), “Big Snow Sports Day” will be held in Hikage Area (*The application is open until 17:00 on 3/20 (Wed)).

　　
[Nozawa Onsen Availability Information on 3/21 (Thu.)]
*All courses are OPEN (Except for Hachiman, Kamoshika, Kandahar)
*Available Lifts … Nagasaka Gondola (8:30 -), Hikage Gondola (8:30 -) and totally 14 lifts.
*Fees … Adult JPY6,800, Senior JPY5,400, Under 15 y/o JPY4,100 (3/1-3/31 Family 1 Day Ticket A JPY8,750, Family 1 Day Ticket B JPY12,000, 4/1- Spring Discount Adult JPY5,300, Under 15 y/o JPY3,200, Over 60 y/o JPY4,200)

*Request for the original data of our photographs

reported by Snownavi