A Sunny Day at Norn - Guest Post by Pelle

Pelle has been spending some time in Snow Country of late and was kind enough to let us know about his day at Minakami Norn

A sunny day at Norn.

We had the opportunity to spend a day skiing at Norn Ski Resort in Minakami after a relaxing stay at the ryokan Tatsumikan  in Kamimoku. For dinner we had food grilled over charcoal and nicely presented like it´s customary at ryokans and for breakfast we had the dazzling view from the top floor dining room of Tanigawa-dake bathed in sunshine. We knew then that it would be a fine day for trying out the slopes at Norn. Even if little English was spoken at the resort we managed to rent our skis without too much trouble. A few phrases and sign language gets you a long way. Also there is a form that you have to fill out with name, shoe size, length and weight that helped.

The ski resort is rather smallish with only four lifts of which three were running on the day we spent there.  Norn has six courses ranging from beginner to expert and gives a good range of experience even on such a small number of courses.  They have a small area with a snowboarding park and a kids area. Most of the courses were really good and fun to ride and I never felt it was too small for a day of skiing. We went on a Friday and there were quite a few others in the slopes but we never had to queue at the lifts. Also the view from Norn was amazing, I don’t think any photo can do it justice but I did try to capture it.

Norn runs free shuttle busses to and from both Minakami station on the local Joetsu line and Jomo-Kogen station on the Joetsu Skinkansen line. They have most facilities you would want in a ski resort except for an onsen.

In all we had a great day skiing at Norn and even if the staff spoke little if any English that was never a problem. Everyone was very nice and helpful so we left Norn with a smile on our faces.