More rain this morning I'm afraid and the forecast tells us to expect rain for pretty much all of today and tomorrow as well. Having said that, where I am it has actually eased off in the last 30 minutes or so and the clouds seem to have moved up higher as well - just a lull perhaps. At least the winds aren't crazy strong as they are in some parts of Japan today.

It's a bit cooler again with the rain and cloud cover and about 14C at the moment - so similar to yesterday.

The good news is that this rain and hopefully the clouds too should clear up by the weekend, and so the last part of the second part of Golden Week (!) should be good. It would be really nice to be able to end the season with good weather conditions.

At Goryu, the snow on the lower slopes has now melted away enough for them to not allow you to ski down to the base area any more - you now have to get the Gondola back down at the end of the day. Which is the case at all four resorts that remain open actually.

4 days to go!

Official snow depths and operations @ Thursday 3rd May 2012 AM:

Hakuba Goryu:
Gondola and Alps daira No 1-4 lifts are all operating. You need to get the Gondola back down.
Official snow depths:
Alps daira - 135cm

Hakuba 47:
Top areas open - you need to get the Gondola back down to base - lower Route 1 and Route 7 now closed.
Official snow depth:
Upper - 65cm
Lower - 10m

Happo-one:
Top areas open (lower slopes now all closed) - you need to get the Gondola back down to base.
Lifts normally operating daily until 6th May are:
Gondola
Grat quad
Alpen quad
Panorama pair
Skyline No2 pair
Kurobishi No2 quad
Kokusai No3 pair
Usagidaira pair
Kurobishi No3
Official snow depth:
Usagidaira - 110cm

Tsugaike Kogen:
Planned lifts operating are Ropeway, Gondola, Tsuga No2 pair lift and the Hannoki pair.
Official snow depth:
Upper slopes - 160cm

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Hakuba Goryu, Hakuba 47, Happo-one and Tsugaike Kogen all plan to remain open until Sunday 6th May.

The Hakuba Cortina, Norikura, Iwatake, Sanosaka and Minekata resorts are all now closed for the season.