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Unfortunately this season did not see as much of the white stuff as we had all hoped for. It arrived late but looked quite promising, with decent falls from the new year period until the middle of January. Then the season then fell flat on its face with not a lot of snow falling (by Nozawa standards) for a month long period until mid February. To add insult to injury, there was relatively regular rainfall in between the snow that we did get. March and the start of April saved the day to some extent, with at least 10 days of decent powder on the mountain, and epic conditions at the end of March/start of April. In fact the snowiest day all season was probably at the start of April, believe it or not.

Highlights

Best of the season – photos taken from our daily blog.

Perfect Powder Day:

It would be hard to imagine a better day on the mountain than that. Deep dry pow and bluebird. This day was sandwiched between two very snowy powder days, a very nice run we had in the middle of January.

March Madness:

Noone imagined it could be that good at the end of March. Anyone who made a late season trip to Japan this season – kudos to you.

Unfortunately there was not too much to write home about in between “perfect powder day” and “March Madness”. We wait in hope for next season.

In general

Visitor numbers: We don’t have any statistics at the moment, but the general consensus about foreign visitor numbers this season is that there were around twice as many foreigners compared to last year. With Nozawa being a traditional Japanese village, naturally many worry that it will lose its charm and appeal if it becomes overrun with foreigners. The reality is that Nozawa is going to undergo very hard times unless they can continue to increase visitor numbers for years to come, and almost every local is happy with the increased foreign interest and subsequent positive economic offsets. I didn’t hear about any major cringeworthy cultural incidents. Another fact to consider is that “Overrun” is a relative term, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in the onsen that visitor numbers will get anywhere near Nozawa in its glory days of the late 80s and early 90s.

This year Nozawa probably saw an overall increase in Japanese guests as well, due to people staying away from the smaller fields which struggled for snow this season. Weekends right until the end of March and New Years was considerably busier than last season.

Outlook for next year: Any predictions for the coming season would be pure speculation this far out. However the locals do say there is a trend for a bad season to be followed by good, and vice versa. A good indicator will be the long term JMA forecast, which was pretty much spot on for this season and the last. We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Thanks!

Nagano Go had a great first season. We would like to thank:
Masazo, Toemu, Bun Bun and Yamaichi for being such great hosts.
Shigeya and the Tommi Rentals crew.
Butch for his awesome videos.
Matt for his weather reports – probably the most relevant report out there, and as accurate as anything.
Everyone who came and stayed with us.
Jo at Stay Bar for the ever heavy pour.
Anyone who read our site, especially those who commented!
Sebastian for reporting and also schooling me on Nozawa terrain.

We are really looking forward to next season. The website is still undergoing work but we hope that both Nagano Go and the snow gods can get it together for a bigger and better season in 2009/2010.

See you next season!!!