Snow report for Hakkaisen, Japan: It's going to be "bus-high" outside today, enjoy!

This is the view outside our private bus ride to the mountain. Notice the snow bank is as high as the bus coming in our direction.

A couple of weeks ago, we took our second trip up to Echigo Yuzawa in the Nigata Prefecture and stayed in Hakkaisen. If word hasn't gotten out yet, let me be the first to say that it snows a ridiculous amount in Japan. We started out our trip by heading straight to Kagura, a resort near Hakkaisen. Kagura is actually a resort we had intended to reach during our last trip to Nigata, but we were unable to get there due to timing. After getting off the train, we hopped a bus to the mountain. It's really interesting how the Nigata Prefecture maintains its roadways during the winter time. Instead of running salt trucks all the time, which would be futile given the amount of snow that falls, the townships simply put sprinklers on the ground. These sprinklers are everywhere from the roadways to the sidewalks. But even though this melts most of the snow people are still out shoveling snow constantly to keep up with the daily snowfall. We had a clear day at Kagura, but Kagura had just received two feet overnight and about 10 inches per day the prior three days. I was excited when we got to the mountain because to get from the base to the top we got to ride in a sweet tram (I've never ridden in a mountain-tram before). Most of my day was spent teaching three friends how to snowboard; all of them were able to get some basics down and we had a blast on the hill. Afterward, we caught a bus back to the train station and headed to our hotel. A nice gentleman from the hotel came to meet us at the station and took us to the hotel. The hotel was quaint but in need of some refurbishing. Our package with the hotel included a massive meal for both dinner and breakfast, which is pretty common for a Japanese style hotel. During our two night stay at the Japanese hotel, it snowed 1.5 feet each day. From the moment we arrived in Hakkaisen to the moment we stepped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to leave, it continued to dump snow. When we woke up for our first day in Hakkaisen, the same gentleman that picked us up from the train station took us in a van to the mountain, see picture above. It was amazing too ride around with so much snow on the ground. In fact, on the mountain there was a bit too much snow on the lower parts to really get going. Nonetheless, we had an absolute blast. The pictures really tell it all.

This kind lady has been shoveling all day to keep her establishment open for business.


Here's a sprinkler that's party of the snow removal system in Echigo Yuzawa.

A quick tram ride up to heaven at Kagura.


Inside the tram from left to right: Mike, Saori, Evan, Jen, Hickory, and Nick.


This is the lobby of our hotel in Hakkaisen.

This car was not covered in snow the day before. And the shack where we kept our snowboards and skis had no snow by the door. I wish I had taken the picture before trampling a route to the door, which could not be opened until we removed the snow.

This rock had no snow on it when we arrived. The morning brought good news for the mountain.

As you can see from this tram picture (taken at Hakkaisen), people were aware that it had snowed the night before.

I know this picture looks dreamy, but it was totally real and really fun!