Tsugaike Kogen / ◎255cm / Sunny2022.Jan.03
The theme of today’s resort report is “Tsugaike Before 9:00 a.m.” The Oya-no-hara area (pictured), where accommodations line the slopes, is convenient for getting an early start to the day, and I saw skier after skier sliding down the slope before the start of business at 8:00. (The yellow building pictured in the background is Heartland.) By 8:55, the Central Parking Lot and the Champion Parking Lot were already full, and I saw quite a few people walking along the main street.
[Oya-no-hara]
On the other hand, even at 8:30, there were few people at the top of the resort. One of the reasons is that it takes 15 minutes to the top from the gondola mid-station via the 4,120m-long gondola (pictured), and 20 minutes from the base station. Dry snow was falling through gloomy, cloudy skies at the base of the resort, but the area from the bottom of Han-no-ki and above was above the clouds, and skies were bright and welcoming.
[Tsuga-no-mori]
The fresh snow that fell last night, was pressed by the grooming machines into a fine, “silky” powder surface along the Han-no-ki High Speed Pair (pictured). And even though it’s still during the New Year’s holidays, I was able to have the slope nearly to myself! The Tsuga No. 2 Pair Lift opened at 9:00, and the ungroomed areas of the Tsuga-no-mori Slope were covered in more than 30cm of fresh, light snow.
[Han-no-ki]
As I continued lower down the mountain, I ran into fog around the middle of the Han-no-ki Slope. The ungroomed, steep slope near the Han-no-ki No. 3 Quad Lift (pictured) had around 20 to 30cm of light, new snow. I did bottom out several times, but the underlying base was soft and overall I enjoyed a great, satisfying powder run. I found myself wanting to repeat laps on the wide-open Han-no-ki slope, which was almost empty before 9:00.
[Han-no-ki]
[Availability Information for Jan. 3]
* All Areas Available
* Available Lifts … Gondola ( 8:00 a.m.―), totally 12lifts
* Lift Price … 1-day Ticket Adults JPY5,500, 6-12 y/o JPY3,300, Over 60 y/o: JPY4,000
*Tsugaike Kogen Ski Resort will start the 2021-22 Winter operation from late November, 2021 (*Depending on the snow) until May 5, 2022.
* Request for the original data of our photographs
