Three clicks later the 'live' webcam at Nozawa Onsen, our chosen destination, showed acres of white. Nestled into a valley an easy 100-kilometre drive north of Nagano City, Nozawa Onsen was Japan's very first ski resort, back in the 1890s. Skiers well outnumber snowboarders on all but the baby runs. The slopes are split into three sections, offering steep and icy expert runs drilling down to flat beginners' bowls. A long easy run is available from midway for the less vertically inclined.
Most runs are relatively short, but hey, it's only a weekend.
There's little chance of getting bored over a few days, especially if the skiing is liberally interspersed with udon, coffee, or whatever. Unsure that the traditional Japanese inn experience would suit our Western ski sensibilities, we opted for the cosy Haus St. Anton. Owned and run by the Japan Olympic team's head coach, former Olympian Mikio Katagiri, the hotel gets its eclectic European feel from his long sojourn in the Austrian alpine town of the same name. The hotel is filled with wooden benches, warm nooks and cold beer, and trappings of the Nagano Olympics, including mementos from the German biathlon team, who stayed here, and apparently spent much of their training time signing the walls. The Haus St. Anton bed and meal early-season deal was 10,000 a person per night.