This weekend sees another big batch of resorts opening. On Thursday and Friday, bought two consecutive snow days resulting in a total of 50cm falling on some of the major resorts like Niseko, Hakuba and beyond.

Hakuba Goryu 12/12

It was not all good news everywhere, in Niigata and Toyama, several resorts had to delay their planned (early) opening because of a lack of snow.

This is still very early in the season, many resorts have only opened a small number of lifts.

Huge snowfall on Thursday night meant a number of resorts opened on Friday (5th) and Saturday (6th) this week!

In Hokkaido, a number of resorts delayed their opening from last week due to a lack of snow, including Niseko, Rusutsu and Kiroro. These resorts finally were able to open this weekend.

Hakuba47, Happo-one and Tsugaike in Hakuba opened a week earlier than planned because of the big dump. Even Zao Onsen had a unplanned pre-opening this weekend.

This weekend (11/29) was supposed to be the season opening of Niseko, Rusutsu, Kiroro and Furano. However, due to the warm weather and lack of snowfall, all but Furano have delayed their opening. There is snow expected in the next few days in Hokkaido. Furano opened on time and had three lifts operating today.

Resorts in Sapporo like Teine and Kokusai continued to operate since opening last weekend (11/22).

Nozawa Onsen successfully opened the top-most area, Yamabiko. Though the bottom half of the mountain is still closed.