WHILE the heavens seemed to have delivered an extraordinary amount of snow to Niseko this season, the snowfall stats tell us it’s apparently just an average winter here (as our weather guru The Don lays out for us in Fluff on page 9). The snowbanks on the side of the roads certainly seem higher than usual this time of the season – something I’ve spent a lot of time pondering while digging the deluge of powder from my driveway.
But it makes me wonder how crazy this place must be to manage in a big month or season, when you see some of the stats that have been recorded at Kutchan.Some food for thought: in December (2009), apparently I shoveled about 2.46m of snow out of my drive. In the January of ’69, they shoveled 6.1m out of theirs… that’s a two-storey building of snow in just 31 days! Glancing across the records, 3-5m snowfall months used to be pretty commonplace, although they’ve been pretty few and far between in recent years. Which makes me think we must be about due!
More on snowfall in Fluff, but also in this issue we fill you in on all the action going on at Mt Annupuri’s little bro Moiwa this season. We take you inside the local party scene of the past few weeks, introduce you to legendary local character Shukin Moderski, share a meal with you at local favourite izakaya restaurant A-Bu-Cha, and explore plans for a resort that will take Niseko to a whole new level – Capella Niseko.
We’re right at the peak of another epic Niseko winter. We’re sure you’ll be peaking with excitement and good times on the slopes and off!