A couple of us from work went for a last minute weekend trip to Nozawa Onsen. A lot of people had recommended this resort, so definitely keen to try it out. After deciding on Friday afternoon that I would go, was a bit hectic getting home to pick up boards then get back to work to get picked up for the four hour drive up to Nagano. We stayed in a really budget lodge run by an Aussie (vegemite toast for breakfast!), so the accommodation wasn't flash, but it was cheap and close to the slopes.
Now this was a fun resort. We spent most of the weekend dropping off the right hand side of the mountain down through a selection of incredibly steep gullies and ridges. At the start of the weekend it was almost untracked, but by the end... well we chopped up a fairly vast amount of terrain. In the end we had to give up on it because the temperature warmed up and it was getting just a bit to sketchy... 50+ degree lines that were coming with you rather a lot... and there was some fairly large cookies rolling down as well. We certainly wiped all the gullies clear of tracks by the amount of snow that was slipping down them. Heh steep... Fun.
So after spending a day and a half in the resort and not going on one single "marked" trail, we decided to try out a run called skyline to finish off the afternoon. Wow, this is probably the best groomed run I have ever ridden. It is a relatively narrow trail that goes straight down a ridge line with steep drops off both sides. Really impressive views all the way, and not crowded at all, so you can really speed down all 3km+ of it. Impressive.
After staying till closing time (several laps of Skyline!) on the Sunday we had a quick onsen then headed back to Tokyo. Even caught a glimpse of Shiga in the distance on the way home. Definitely going to go there next season, and definitely going back to Nozawa Onsen as well.
We got a taste of the famous weekend freeway traffic on the way home, but a quick stop for some ramen and we missed the worst of it and ended up back in Tokyo by about 10pm.
