Good morning from the Yuzawa area where all of the ski lifts are now resting.

The 2014-2015 season has at last come to an end. With some ski hills closing two months ago, this last part of the season with Kagura remaining open always seems to go on for a long time – especially as there have been close to no signs of snow and hot conditions down here in town for quite some time.
Kagura always has the longest season and this time they were open for a period of 191 days… that’s over 6 months!

So that was it. According to the chart that you can see below, we observed a huge 1303cm of snow in town this season since December. That’s getting on for 5m more than last season. And remember that is the snow that fell at town level – not high up on the mountains! Impressive numbers I’m sure you’ll agree.
Probably the main talking point of the 2014-2015 season was the snowfall that we got in December. It felt like it wasn’t going to stop at some points, and it’s probably fun to go and read over the archive reports to remind yourself of how that developed.

December 2013: 131cm observed at town level
December 2014: 559cm observed at town level

That’s some difference.

More snow this last season than the previous one in the month of January as well, and about same in February. 2013-2014 season beat 2014-2015 for snowfall in the month of March though. So we basically got the bulk of our snowfall in the first part of the season, with the feeling that we could have really done with more fresh top-ups later on in the main season.

There was no snow shortage problems though!

Take a look at the Yuzawa relevant data on the main chart page here:
Observed snowfall charts

You can see how December looks very different over the last two seasons.

Let’s hope that we get another impressive snowfall for 2015-2016 season.

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As with many popular regions of Japan, Yuzawa also enjoyed a noticeable increase in the number of non-Japanese on the slopes. A trend which will no doubt continue over the coming years.

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The SnowJapan Yuzawa Now reports will of course be back in time for the 2015-2016 season and no doubt Kagura will be aiming for a late November opening once again.

Thank you for reading the reports this season and in particular to those of you who send us some feedback - not only for the Yuzawa Now reports but on other areas of the website. We hope you enjoyed them and that they proved to be helpful.

We're busy working on new things for SnowJapan which should see the light of day before next season begins.

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Fuji Rock Festival in Naeba

The next big event in Yuzawa is the famous Fuji Rock Festival which is held over at Naeba from Friday 24th July until Sunday 26th July.

The line-up this year at Fuji Rock includes Foo Fighters, Muse, Noel Gallagher's Flying Birds, Motorhead, Ride, Belle and Sebastian, Ash, Johnny Marr, Happy Mondays - and literally many more, including a fair chunk of Japanese artists. Here’s to a successful festival and co-operating weather conditions.

We’ll post a report or two in the run up to Fuji Rock with the latest on the weather conditions.