REPORT

After a mild and pleasant New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, January-like cold weather has once again returned to Tsugaike. The trees covered in rime ice all the way down to the gondola mid-station (pictured) illustrated this well. Yet even with the return of cold temperatures, the amount of new snow overnight was limited to about 10 cm on the upper portion of the ski resort, and about 5 cm on the lower half.
[Shirakaba Slope]

I ran into a couple from Tokyo (pictured), who told me, “We love your site! We’re working remotely from our vacation home in Tsugaike and come out to ski every day. We’ve actually been trying to find one of the Snownavi reporters!” On the groomed Han-no-ki slope, the snow in the area alongside the Han-no-ki High Speed Speed Pair Lift was hardpacked around the artificial snow machines, while the rest of the slope had a moderately soft, easy to ski snow surface.
[Han-no-ki Slope]

On the Tsuga-no-mori Slope (pictured), the groomed area in the center on the slope featured moderately firm powder snow conditions. The ungroomed areas had 5 to 10cm of fresh snow and were easy to ski due to the softness of the underlying base. Shirakaba, Maruyama, Champion, and Oya-no-hara were all groomed and in similar condition to Han-no-ki, with moderately soft powder snow.
[Tsuga-no-mori Slope]

Despite the fact that it was a Wednesday just after the New Year holiday period ended, there were still many visitors on the slopes this morning, and the Central and Champion parking lots were full as of 10:00. In other news, ‘TG PARKS @ mini’ opened on 12/30 (Fri.) in the area alongside the Han-no-ki High Speed Pair Lift. Currently the mini park consists of a 5m table top, 6m rail, 2 narrow boxes, and 3m table top, in that order.
[Maruyama Slope]

　　　
[Tsugaike Kogen Opening Information for 1/4 (Wed.)]
*All courses are available!
*Available Lifts … Gondola (8:00 a.m.–), totally 12 lifts
*Fees … Adult JPY5,900, 6-12 y/o JPY3,500, Over 60 y/o JPY4,300 (Until 3/12)
　
＊Printable Rental Discount Coupons!
Carving Ski・Snowboard 1-Day Rental Set JPY3,000 / Outerwear JPY2,500!
Carving Ski・Snowboard High Performance Model Rental JPY500 OFF!
Kid’s Ski・Snowboard 1-Day Rental Set JPY2,500 / Outerwear JPY1,500!
　
*Click here to purchase photos found in this report

reported by Snownavi