A good morning to everyone reading from here in Madarao Kogen, where it is officially the first day of the season. Always an exciting time and happily this year we have had decent snowfall over the last few weeks enabling the resort to open as planned.

Light snow is falling at the moment and conditions are looking good. I'll be out there myself in a short while to test it all out.

For the moment, here is what is open on this first day of the season:

- Number 1 lift
- Number 2 quad lift

Lift tickets will be available at the special price of 2000 yen for adults and 1000 yen for children (elementary school age). Those lower prices will be available until Thursday 22nd December.

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It looks like the snow clouds are going to ease off later today and tomorrow we might see sunshine in the region. In fact, it's looking like there's going to be a run of a few days of fine weather - along with some generally milder conditions mid to late week. Got to keep an eye on that as we obviously want things to remain cold and more snow.

But anyway, it should be a fine first weekend of the season.

Here's to a long and snowy season. Hope to see you here.