Good morning from Yuzawa.

The very long season comes to an end today. After an unseasonably cool and rather wet May, it looks like we might get some mixed weather conditions today - some sun early morning, probably lots of cloud during the day and maybe some rain.

Temperatures should be rising soon and no doubt we will be having another very hot summer. Summer skiing on artificial mats will be on offer on the Mitsumata slope of Kagura (about 1100m) and GALA Yuzawa (about 350m) as below:

Kagura: Weekends & holidays from 10th July through 3rd October (plus 10th-13th August, 24th September)
GALA Yuzawa: Weekends & holidays from 22nd July through 5th September

The Fuji Rock Festival music festival is still hoping to go ahead this year over at Naeba (20th-22nd August). It looks like it will be a mostly Japanese artist line-up this year and they are of course planning various covid measures.

As for the 2021-2022 winter season... hopefully that can get going at Kagura from late November. :)

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A look back at 2020-2021 (Yuzawa version)

After the disappointing snowfall in the 2019-2020 winter season, people were somewhat apprehensive about what to expect for 2020-2021. Would we be able to get back to what we are used to… heavy snow?

The first snow of the season down to town level was recorded on 14th December 2020 and for a period of about a week it hardly stopped. It was relentless.

42cm, 96cm, 76cm, 38cm, 32cm, 51cm, 40cm. Over a span of seven days, the Yuzawa Now reports clocked up 375cm of snowfall. And remember, that’s down at town level. Incredible!

The first 10 days of January was pretty impressive too.

We were blessed with a deep (and rather sudden) base of snow, and that allowed the ski areas across the region to pretty much open as planned – though some had to spend time ‘dealing’ with it all.

Having a good base right from the start is a great way to start the season and there were some excellent early season conditions for those here to enjoy it.

The rate of snowfall started to slow down after that. We got fairly regular snowfall through February, but things warmed up more than we would have liked between the snowstorms and we did get some rain. Luckily we had that deep base.

Only 9cm of snowfall was recorded at town level during the month of March (in the report on 3rd March), and that actually ended up being the last snowfall recorded down in town. That meant that the spring season felt particularly long this year.

But even with a lack of fresh snow from March, that early deluge from mid-December through early January meant that snow cover was never been a problem.

That would be enough of a story in any year but, of course, we also had the coronavirus situation to deal with this time.

Tokyo went into that so called 'state of emergency’ in early January and while it was not a full-on lockdown, it certainly affected the number of people visiting the Yuzawa region. The situation made it somewhat awkward for ski resorts to go out there and pro-actively encourage people to come. And there were perhaps more day trips than overnight stays, which affected hotels and other accommodations.

Some ski areas adjusted their operations to varying degrees. There were some disruptions mid-season. Some ski areas actually seemed to remain fairly busy. Some were extremely quiet. Some were more affected by the lack of inbound guests than others. But in the end, everyone has been affected.

The archive Yuzawa Now reports can be read through any time, so for a detailed look back at the season please do check those out. We recommend the reports during that early season heavy snow! Those were exciting times.

Everyone is of course hoping for a brighter worldwide travel situation come autumn. As much as you might be wanting to visit, be assured that there’s lots of people here eagerly waiting to welcome you back.

That’s it from Yuzawa Now for the 2020-2021 season. We'll leave you with a few snowy images from the season (below).

See you in November.

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End of season general message from SnowJapan
This message is being posted on all of the Now daily reports

First of all, we hope that you and yours are keeping well.

What another strange season 2020-2021 has been.

In terms of snow and conditions, the story of the season can be found in the respective reports. Each region had its own story, of course, but it was certainly great to be able to get back to reporting some heavy snowfall this time round. Spring did once again seem to arrive earlier than we would like, but those fortunate enough to be able to enjoy the snow were able to experience some very fine conditions.

Challenges

Ski areas around Japan made various efforts to deal with the covid-19 situation and while there were some changes to operations here and there, most were able to open for the season. Some ski areas and regions have been affected more than others, but it’s probably safe to say that is has been a challenging period for pretty much everyone involved. In particular, destinations that have enjoyed a lot of foreign visitors in recent years have probably felt a big shock.

Perhaps inevitably, there has been a generally more subdued atmosphere and feel to the season.

Decisions

We made a few decisions before the winter started.

Unfortunately, it was getting obvious that international travel restrictions would be preventing people from entering Japan over the 2020-2021 season. And it was clearly going to be a great disappointment to many.

Even so, we wanted to keep SnowJapan updated as close to normal as possible. We asked our reporters to mention ‘the news’ when it seemed appropriate, but not to dwell on it too much. After all, people are not coming to SnowJapan to read about covid every day. We hope we got that difficult balance right.

Daily reports and updates are an important part of the site. They are popular with people while they are visiting Japan, but people also read our archive reports to see how previous seasons turned out and to make comparisons. Indeed, this last season we have noticed that a lot of you have been following from overseas – even if you weren’t able to come and enjoy the snow in person.

We would like to say a big public thank you to the reporters who did another fine job covering the 2020-2021 winter season on SnowJapan, in some challenging circumstances. Thanks to those efforts, we have another full season of data to add to our records.

Hopefully that information will continue to be of value to people making plans for a future visit to Japan.

Questions

The world knows much more about covid-19 in May 2021 than it did in April 2020, but in some ways we end this season with some of the same questions we were asking last year…

Everyone wants to know what the situation will be in six months’ time. There’s definitely brighter wider news and reasons to be positive, but big questions remain on how ‘open’ Japan might be for overseas visitors by the time the snow starts falling again.

No-one knows, of course.

Like last year, all we can do is try to keep a positive mindset and hope that progress will be made, and that overseas friends will be able to visit once again.

Looking Ahead

Whatever happens regarding the international travel situation, SnowJapan plans to be here reporting the 2021-2022 winter season.

2020-2021 might now be over, but as usual we are busy working on various stuff for the future. We’ll let you know what we’re up to later in the year.

In the meantime, if you are interested in old ski areas from the past around Japan, the SnowJapanHistory (www.snowjapanhistory.com) website will continue to be updated regularly. Over there you can find details on over 160 ski areas, including at least one that closed back in the 1960s (!)

Anyway, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading and your support. If you want to get in touch, as always you can contact us using this form.

Wherever you are in the world, stay safe… and we’ll see you later in the year.

(Hopefully with good news!)