Hello everybody and friendly greetings from me here in Niseko and welcome back to the 'Niseko Now' reports.

It has been a while since my last report posted at the end of last season... nearly 5 months in fact. In that time I have been trying to get a good recharge, do a bit of travelling and enjoying the summer. As things now start to get colder, it is time to start looking forward to the 2015-2016 winter season - and at the same time prepare myself for my morning Niseko Now writing duties!

We are of course already into October and that means that we will very probably be enjoying the first turns of the season by the end of next month. That does sound exciting.

On the subject of exciting, Mount Yotei enjoyed it's first snowfall of the season a few days ago as we entered October. Just a dusting on the top, but snow all the same. Exciting as it is of course, there's still 7 weeks or so to go before the resort lifts open for the season. So hopefully during that time we can enjoy a comfortable autumn - it's always a lovely time of the year.

I will be bringing you a few Niseko Now reports now and again over the coming weeks, and then of course my daily reporting will have started by the time the ski lifts start moving for the season.

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By the way, the fruits of the hard work that the SnowJapan folk have been busy with over the last year are online:

From this season you can check out Niseko Now (and the other Now reports from around Japan) on the brand new mobile version of SnowJapan - as seen on smartphones now. Don't worry, you can come back to the main site if you like any time.

Also, an almost ridiculously in-depth new 'Travel' section has been added to SnowJapan. There's even a big new Travel button on the main site menu bar. I first heard about this back last December when they were starting to put it together. And a very fine job they have done on it as well. There's a huge amount of information in the section including lots of regional travel guides for popular snow resorts around Japan. I highly recommend you take a look:

http://www.snowjapan.com/travel

Until the next report... enjoy autumn!

** If you are looking for Niseko Now report information from last season and other seasons, check the archives linked at the bottom of this page.