Dec 26th: Powder This Weekend.

The snow started to fall nicely on Christmas night and has continued until boxing day morning. It is a nice sight to see especially since we have been starved of snowfall in December. Of course the WeLoveSnow team will be out at the weekend hoping to make some fresh tracks in the powder. For now though we have to be content with sitting in the office and looking out the window.
For those of you making the trip to Yuzawa this weekend, enjoy it!

Dec 21st: Kagura Once More

The WeLoveSnow team were up bright and early again on Sunday to hit the slopes of Kagura once more. Our newly arrived ski instructor Makiko was teaching so was unable to join us but our other new guy Kieron was quite happy to come along even though he was working in the bottle bar until the early hours of the night before. We met up with a few friends along the way and had a nice easy Sunday.

WeLoveSnow Ski Pass Holder.

Keep your ski pass handy and viewable with the new WeLoveSnow Ski Pass Holder. The convenient arm band, and key ring keeps you from digging through your pockets searching for your money and belongings. There are two colours available, yellow and blue.
On your next trip to Yuzawa, make sure you come to the WeLoveSnow office or Bottle Bar and pick one up for only 500 yen.

Available in Yellow and Blue

Keep Your Money Handy

WeLoveSnow Professional Model

25 Nov 08: Opening Day.

The WeLoveSnow team were up bright and early on Saturday (22nd Nov) to see Kagura Resort open its doors for the first time this season. Some friends also came in from Tokyo to get a piece of the action. Originally planned to be only part open, the early snowfall on the 20th of November meant that we had the whole resort to explore. We even managed to find a short off piste-section with some powder. Not bad at all for the first day!

20 Nov 08: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

Finally after what seems like an age, I woke up this morning to see Yuzawa town centre covered in a blanket of white snow almost 30 cm deep. What seems like a constant snow fall from around 10:00pm last night until the early hours of this morning, has completely changed the face of Yuzawa. This is the Yuzawa that everybody is so familiar with. This is Snow country.

This picture was taken behind Inamoto Ryokan at 9:00am this morning. Now that the snow has finally arrived, we are looking forward to the opening of Kagura and Naeba resorts on the 22^nd of November even more!

4 Nov 08: Get Ready For The New Season!

The official opening dates for Kagura and Naeba have been announced and we are all counting the days to November 22nd. The WLS team will all be there to check out the resorts on opening day and provide you with feedback. This is the moment that we have been waiting for and we hope that you are all as excited as we are.

This picture of the main slope at Kagura was taken on October 30th and as you can see it is already shaping up to be a great season. Get ready everyone because Snow Country is back!

New web site 'Japan Easy' has launched !

Japan Worldwide increases in size! The final touches are being added to the Japan Easy website which is set to be launched today. Japan Easy will be focusing on having a broader range of accomodation in different areas including Hakone, Mt Fuji, Karuizawa, Nikko and Kyoto.

There will also be a focus on green season activites. We hope you can check out the site and get back to us to see what you think.

A Sweet Spring Day

Spring has no doubt come to Yuzawa and with the tempertures hovering around the low to mid teens in town you can now just get away with a T-shirt, today I have done just that. The remaining resorts which are still open in the Yuzawa and Minamiunoma area are Pine Ridge Resorts Kandatsu, Kagura, Naeba, Gala, Iwappara and Maiko of these Maiko and Kandatsu are closing this weekend but Kagura, Naeba and Gala will still be open till into May. Its defientley worth a trip up for some nice spring snow.

Monkey Magic

Well spring has arrived, we had complete blue skies, no need for coats and plenty of sun screen being plastered on. The snow conditions are still pretty good even though it is so hot, we still managed to find some good off piste as well as some fast nice courses. Kagura are officially opening until the 25th of May this season so still another whopping 9 weeks left. (Tashiro area will close on the 6th of May). The big highlight was in the car park where a band of about 30 Monkeys decided to look for food, this involved a lot of new borns being dragged around the mountain by their parents.

Top Lift -Off

A nice 30cm of new snow on Monday night set Tuesday up to be another quality day on the hill. Kagura have now opened the top lift which takes you right up to the top ridge. You can tell why they do not open this during Jan/Feb as it gives instant access to more backcountry than they could patrol; didn't matter which way we chose we were hitting 3km powder runs all day. I have done backcountry all over Japan and yesterday just proved that it does not get better than Kagura. Week forecast looks like snow all day Thursday, cloudy Friday morning with more snow coming in later during the day. Saturday fine and Sunday sunny so get there early Saturday morning as there will be some fresh tracks to be had.

Big Weekend in Yuzawa

The snow festival went off without a hitch on Saturday and although it was snowing there where many people walking around town. The Giant snowman in the open lot next to the bottle bar also made an appearance after giving last year a miss snow is forecast for tonight and starting again in the late afternoon but probably only a few cm and Spring is starting show its face with a nice blue sky warm day on the slopes on Sunday hopefully with many more of those to come.

Blue Skies and Bright Sunshine

This season hasn`t seen many of those with all the snow days so it was good to get out and have half a day lesson in the sunshine in just a jumper, the piste conditions could be described as perfect esically during the morning, it was great to have a sneak peak of what spring may have in store for us. But for the resort of the week accoriding to the JMA is snow until next week Friday starting tonight/early tomorrow morning.

Yuzawa Snow Festival day return - 1 March 2008

On 1st of March, Yuzawa Snow Festival in Yuzawa - a fantastic show & great event to experience. Hotel rooms are mostly booked up now, but even if you cannot get a hotel room it is still possible to make a day return trip from Tokyo, on this coming Staurday. The last train back to Tokyo leaves at 10.20pm - leaving you plenty of time to enjoy the festivities. WeLoveSnow offer a variety of day return packages, starting at only JPY14,500 for adults and JPY8,000 for children. Click here for more info: Japan Ski Day Return Packages.

Hakkaisan strikes again

Hakkaisan is an extreme resort. For the most part, the resort is un-groomed with very steep slopes, serviced by one main 'ropeway' (the Japanese term for a large gondola, holding perhaps 50 people).

On a powder day, the resort is amazing: the quality and quantity of the snow has to be some of the best in Japan. However, without a lot of snow this resort is full of icy moguls - which is about as bad as it gets.

As such, we are careful to choose our Hakkaisan days: but these days tend to be some of the best of the season. Yesterday was no exception: the powder was thigh deep, and there was a lot of fun to be had. In fact, I can honestly say that a couple of the runs yesterday were some of the best that I've ever experienced.

Bright and Sunny

Today was a bright and sunny day at Kandatsu where we're teaching the British School in Beijing, on-piste conditions where fantastic and even some powder pockets left from the weekend looked quite good until the sun hit them but through the trees should still be fantastic. Every time I go to Kandatsu I like it even more, it has a fantastic terrain park and one of the steepest runs in the area it is definitley one of my top 3 favourite resorts in the region this year, but with almost every resort in Yuzawa having more than 3m of snow its very hard to choose !

Sensational

Would be the word to describe kagura this afternoon, I ducked out of the office this afternoon because with the amount of snow falling around town Kagura had to skied. For those who know Kagura the No.4 Romance gives great access to some awesome powder, under the No.4 lift there was so much so that you could drag your stock along the snow just before the 4th pylon, it was great skiing under there as you could touch the ski lift while skiing - not often done. For those getting up there this weekend there will be awesome pockets of snow still lying around, best to get up there early.
Have a good weekend.

The Snow Continues to fall

Snow fall has continued throughout the night and almost 1m of snow has accumalated in town on top of what was already there so in some places there are 2m of snow. Just out of town to Kagura the road has snowalls which are about 2.5m high and with a lot of street signs covered up, the snow is set to continue throughtout the weekend and even in till next week, hopefully this won't be the last "big" snowfall for the season.

Reggae Snow Splash in Hakuba

In March 8 there is a big reggae event in the Tracks Bar in Hakuba and tomorrow it is at Minakami at Cayons Headquaters it set to be a really good night due to the good season we`ve been having here, it is definetley an event to head down for, there are many events hosted aswell in Yuzawa which will increase in the March period the Next event date is in Yuzawa on the 23rd, hope to see you there!

And so it begins again

Today we've had well over 50cm of snow, overnight there was around 30cm on top of the cars and its has been snowing all day except for a brief period of sun at around 10:00am. Its become quiet in Yuzawa after the Chinese New Year period but will pick up once again once its becomes Friday night again. The snow is set to continue throughout the week till atleast next Monday but not at the same intesity, there is another good 40-60cm out of this system, a good top up for all the resorts.

Another great weekend at Kagura

We keep having a joke amongst the kagura crew that every weekend "it just keeps getting better" No difference this weekend with a morning of fresh powder and an afternoon spent trying to make some videos of fun in the deep stuff. There is a really good atmosphere building in kagura with a lot of new like minded people becoming friends after tearing up the tracks in the same back country. The new rule for this year is anybody looking for some off piste action either meet in the car park at 8am or kagura gondola cafe at 12pm. Check out the you tube link for our first attempt at video hopefully we get better.

Another Day at Kandatsu

Today was another day at Pine Ridge Kandatsu located just outside of the Echigo Yuzawa town centre. It was a bright and Sunny day almost throughout the whole day - the snow that was expected to fall, didn`t. However this was only the 2nd or 3rd fine day we`ve had since the new year everyone looked to be have a great time and it was quite a busy day for a wednesday, tomorrow I will be at Kandatsu again and then Friday at Gala and hopefully getting up to either Kagura or Hakkaisan on the weekend (depending on weather)

Another Day at Kandatsu

This season I have been going to Kandatsu quite often everytime I go I begin to like it even more. The terrain park is one of the best in the area and it also boasts the steepest slope in the Yuzawa area. The snow conditions at the moment are great the temperature is low and the ocassional dusting of snow is keeping the slopes in good conditions. We are set for snow till Sunday but then we might have a few days of sunshine. The outlook for this weekend looks to be good for everyone coming up this weekend.

It Just Keeps Getting Better

Picture this a whole week of fresh snow, just as the weekend approaches the winds increase and the key top lift stops working for most of the day. Just as everyone has had a good blast through the lower powder and is ready to head home, the resort open this top lift for the last 2 hours. 100cm of totally un touched powder on all the top courses, no groomers no tracks, no people just your own un tracked powder heaven. It just does not get any better than this. Then just as the heart returned to a normal pace, the clouds cleared for Saturday and the sun came out. More untracked powder off the pistes and a real buzz around the resort as season 2007/08 hits the real take off button.