Intrepid staff members Pat and Alanna braved the whiteout conditions at Happo to bring you the good news – It’s dumped!

Alanna kicking up a faceshot

15cm at the lodge translated into 30-40cm at the top. little snowmen every day in the forecast for the next week and a possible Hakuba megadump on the cards for the 23rd. Looks like the season is really getting under way

Pat advertising for Salomon

Hisashiburi! Did you miss us?  It’s that time of year again… the middle of January and we are just getting around to posting our first blog of the season!  But can you blame us for being a tad tardy?  Heaps of fresh snow with consistent cold temps has given us plenty of powder to play in.  Who wants to sit in front of the computer when you can be out enjoying what’s shaping up to be another fantastic winter season in Hakuba!?

Powder Slashin' Santas

Morino has also busy welcoming some new additions to the family!  Alana and Pat are our new in-house chefs cooking up a storm at Wadano and Morino Cafe and taking our Christmas dinner to another level.  Mathieu hails from tropical Reunion Island, but has enthusiastically taken to the snow… even the shoveling!  Michiko, our genki-est staff ever is back, and brought her friend Konomi to join in on the fun at the lodge.

Last, but certainly not least are two tiny additions:

Maika Joy Oldring born Sept 21st 2010

Hanna Abigael Dunn born Christmas Eve, 2010

Thanks to all of our awesome guests and staff for making yet another Morino Christmas to remember!  And to the rest of the Morino family out there… stay tuned for more blogs and photos to come!

Settin' up the Spread

Diggin Out'

Diggin' In

Santa's Little Helpers

Enjoying the feast

Eying the Desserts

A White Christmas!

The Christmas Crew

Maika's First Christmas

Crazy cool cookies

Dessert Delivery

David Eyes the Birds

A small smiling Santa

Jen prepares the Baked Apples

We had quite the spread this year!

22 kilos of Roasted Turkey

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Rosemary Stuffing

Cranberry -Orange Relish

Sweet Potato Casserole

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Homemade Bread Rolls and Scones

And for Desert…

A traditional Bouche De Noel

Pumpkin cheesecake

New York Cheesecake

Spiced Baked Apples with

Vanilla Ice Cream

All washed down with wine and holiday spirits!

Saving the best for last... a traditional Bouche De Noel!

Timo gets busy in the Kitchen

It wouldn't be Christmas without Gingerbread Houses!

From carving up the slopes to carving up the Turkey

Colorful Christmas Cookies

A Gorgeous Christmas Dinner!

Enjoying the Meal

Fine Food and Fine Wine

Great Christmas! Two 11kilo Turkeys, all the trappings, roast veggies, and 40cm of fresh snow! = Lots of happy guests.

Eric, our new manager at Wadano lodge took a hike off the top of Happo today to check up on the conditions. About 2cm of snow in the valley had translated into knee deep above 2000m.

Looking over from the first cairn to Tengu on the main ridge.

Looking on towards the ridge up to Happo Ike.

Conditions in the resort aren’t stellar yet. The mild (but very nice!) weather of last week softened the snow which was then refrozen over the weekend with only 10cm or so fresh on top. The forecast for this week is for mild conditions again and possibly more snow at the weekend again.

Beautiful day and not a cloud in the sky so went to stretch my legs on top at Goryu. Was expecting dust on crust but found 15cm of fresh snow on a forgiving base. The pistes were in perfect condition! The weather this week is expected to stay sunny and mild followed by colder temperatures and hopefully lots of snow from Friday the 6th of December. Here are some shots from today.

Above is looking south over alps-daira.

The top run at Goryu – snow was in perfect condition.

It’s official! There’s plenty of snow in Hakuba! We were able to verify this by riding lap after lap of bottomless conditions today at Hakuba 47……our longest lift-line being about 12 seconds. This is great news for those coming up for a white Christmas in Hakuba and means you can put away your early season rock boards and bring out the good stuff!

After a couple of weeks of being teased, winter has officially kicked in in full force!

Friday morning had us cutting fresh line after line of 30cm deep powder off line c at Hakuba 47……and today all our guests came back from Happo wearing big smiles with tales of bottomless conditions!

The good news is, it hasn’t stopped snowing since! And Sunday Monday, looking like clear skies, may be the first “epic” days of the season! In fact, the skiing should be excellent all next week as the forecast calls for cold temperatures and more snow……..so for the city folk contemplating when to use those “sick days”, deep powder and no crowds are something you may want to take into consideration.

A quick note about our name, the word “Mori” means forest in Japanese while “no” is the possessive, meaning “belonging to”. So the name Morino Lodge has nothing to do with sheep, but directly translates to “lodge belonging to the forest”. The pics above are of some of the forest surrounding us.

Wax your boards!

Our first guests of the 2007/2008 ski season arrived for two days of R&R at Morino Lodge. The kids outnumbered adults and activities included hide and seek in the massive cavernous maze of Morino lodge, some kind of video game that involved jumping up and down and waving your arms, sledging and singing christmas carols (Hakuba’s very first carol group!)

The finale was a Firework show concocted by pyrotechnic genius Paul whose final piece will surely go down in the annals of Morino Lodge history!

Thanks for a great weekend guys and we look forward to seeing you around Christmas and in the spring!