Hakuba Snow Report – 18th Dec 2011

Weather conditions: Light Snow
New snowfall: 7 cm
Snow depth: 22 cm (village); 80 cm (Top of Goryu)
Good news friends – we awoke today to more snow. It snowed about 7cms in the village overnight and it is still snowing lightly this morning. We are hoping that this snow continues all day long and does not relent until the snow base is deep enough to ski right to the bottom of the resorts! It is not too cold outside today (-1C) and the snow at the village base is quite moist right at the moment, but hey at this stage we will take any snow whatsoever!The snow conditions on the resorts today will be powder and packed powder on most runs and some moguls on steeper sections. Also watch out for icy sections too as where many skiers and boarders are funneled onto limited terrain it can get pretty hard-packed. Still take care going off piste as there are natural hazards in the trees. We are slowly adding to the base on the upper mountain but shallow snowpack may look tempting to blast through but branches, rocks and things might still be lurking under the snow.As of today not all the runs are open here on the resorts in Hakuba still (see below) as we don’t have enough base to open the to the bottom yet. It is looking like Monday might be a good day for a medium sized dump, then from Thursday onwards it is forecasted to get very cold and more flurries to roll in. Lets keep praying for the big snowfalls to arrive and make it a full-on winter wonderland in time for Christmas.