It’s all on: lifts opening Friday

The Ace Quad above the Alpen Hotel will open at 8.30am and be used as a transit lift to the Ace Pair.

Riding will only be allowed on the Centre Course and Shirakaba. The last lift down is 4pm.

Tickets for the day will be ¥2000

At least three Hokkaido Resorts have opened already: Kurodake on the Daisetzuzan Range in the centre of the island opened yesterday; Nakayama Toge in between Niseko and Sapporo opened today; and Onze, a small, little known resort between Otaru and Sapporo which is popular among the younger park riding crew, opened on November 11.

Popular Sapporo resort Teinei is set to open tomorrow but no word on Kokusai which was expected to open early thanks to its snow making machines.

Yesterday warmed right up to about eight degrees and there was a bit of rain in the afternoon.

That didn’t dampen spirits as it may have actually aided in firming up the base in preparation for the dump that arrived on schedule this morning.

A low pressure system (storm cell) is above us now which looks like it’ll unload until the end of tomorrow.

Opening day looks like the possibility of a little more before it fines up a bit over the weekend, and possibly warming up during next week.

Hopefully there will be enough cover to keep us ski/boarding next week before the inevitable next big dump arrives.

That could be earlier than expected as local snow forecasts are known to be pretty inaccurate and often change dramatically within the space of 24 hours.

But Friday’s opening is a good sign for the coming season – it’s the equal second earliest start to a season in eight years.

And the other two early seasons have been the best in recent memory (05/06 - 19th November; 02/03 - also 23rd).