This ski resort is in Nagano city and it takes about 40 minutes from Nagano downtown by car. About 22 years ago, Nagano was the host city for the winter Olympic games and free style skiing mogul took place in Iizuna Kogen ski resort. Back then, Japanese skiers Tae Satoya and Aiko Uemura made us excited because they got good results and finally Tae Satoya got the gold medal. Many Japanese people payed attention to their performance and also Iizuna ski resort.
This ski resort is compact but there are a lot of ski runs for every level skier, plus it's famous for very steep ski runs so we often visited there and enjoyed their ski runs. However, after the Olympic games, sometimes it was closed due to lack of snow and the economy in this ski resort was getting in bad shape little by little. Finally, they decided to go out of business this season's end last year, so this winter is it's last season. However, this winter is unusual and there isn't enough snow for skiing now. Last weekend, it was announced they gave up on opening the ski resort because there is no snow in Iizuna. That's too bad, but I understand it can't be helped. I’d like to say, “Thank you, Iizuna Kogen ski resort”.
