Tsugaike Kogen

Final day of skiing today. We woke up to a nice 10 cm blanket of snow over night, and immediately decided to get out early to Tsugaike Kogen, about half an hour's drive to the north. Tsugaike has a gondola which takes 20 minutes to get to the top, and about 20 chairlifts and gets up to 1704m. Today we just had Paul & Daisy to accompany us -- Jules & Seanie decided to have a rest day.

Arriving early, the resort was super-quiet for the first hour - so we headed straight to the top and did two runs from the top to the mid-station. We had fresh powder snow to ski in, and both Ella and Katy got to experience skiing through snow up to their thigh (which is amazing fun) and falling head first into the powder and getting covered in snow (less fun).

It snowed all day, but unfortunately the gondolas closed due to wind at about 10:30, and we had to catch chairlifts (being battered by the wind) for the rest of the day. But, on the bright side, Katy is now starting to do a parallel turns, we all practised doing a few jumps, and Nat learnt how to enjoy fresh powder snow. Lots of fun was had, but tiredness set in earlier than previously, and we ended up on the 2pm bus home.

After the bus ride home, we popped downstairs for our daily onsen - the hot Japanese bath. We are planning a final Hakuba dinner at a local Japanese restaurant with the Craig family before we head off to our next destination tomorrow.