PowPowPow!

It's been a busy couple a weeks since our last post as Niseko is ramping up for peak season. Guests have been renting vans and chasing the best snow to Kiroro and Kokusai as well as exploring the backcountry with Black Diamond Tours. JS from BD Tours also ran a two day certified avalanche course (AST-1) which was very popular, this course will be running throughout the winter. There was a lunar eclipse, which some of didn't fully appreciate at the time as we put it down to a cloud and concentrated on the snow! The Lodge had a traditional Christmas dinner on the 24th and 25th, the restaurant was full to bursting on both nights with guests and locals. The barbeque cooked beer turkey was a welcome taste of home which was complemented by barbeque orange chicken. Santa dropped off a late present on the evening of the 25th in the form of the biggest dump of the season so far. Some people were even saying that the snow was too dee, we will hopefully be posting some videos of the powdery goodness soon!

The mountain is open!

Suddenly everything has come to life here, the Greenleaf and Black Diamond opening party on Saturday was a big success. After the Niseko premiere of Revolver and The Way I see at the Greenleaf the party moved onto the Black Diamond Lodge Bar. The highlight of the impressive buffet spread was a 6ft Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, which was devoured by the bar full of locals, season workers and a few early powder seekers. The prize for forecasting Sunday’s weather goes to Clayton as all the online sites were going for 1-2cms but it was dumping convincingly on the lodge for most of the day.

Monday therefore saw the first day on Niseko’s slopes for most of the BDL staff and our guests. A couple of runs at Hirafu and one at Annupuri were open, today there is one more run at Hirafu open but I think we’ll be off to check out Annupuri. It’s pretty sunny here right now but the forecast is for light snow constantly over the next 2-3 days.

Here comes the snow!

It's finally starting to feel like winter here in Niseko, the snow is falling and the landscape has turned white. With a blizzard on the radar for Sunday lifts will hopefully be open and stay open from early next week. That works well for us as there may be one or two sore heads after our season opening party this Saturday night!


Hope to see you here at the lodge soon, the bar and restaurant are both open so come in any evening to say hi, shoot some pool and taste our legendary soup curry.

Bigger & Better Super Party