Japan's 10 Best Skiing Resorts | Winter in the Far East

Winter in Japan

Japan’s ski resorts are known for their excellent powder and gorgeous mountain scenery. There are more than 500 resorts of varying size found across the country, many of which are typically overlooked by international tourists. Aside from high snow quality, many ski resorts in Japan double as relaxing hot spring resorts, as well as offering a variety of other winter activities and festivities. Here are some of the best places to ski and snowboard in Japan.

Appi Kogen

Appi Kogen’s carefully-groomed runs cater to an upmarket crowd. The resort encompasses 45.1 km of pistes, most of which are found along the slopes of Mount Maemori along with two nearby on Mount Nishimori. The resort is known for its wide, long runs, with more than half stretching for longer than 2 km. Although there’s no village or town around Appi, it offers the chance to visit an authentically Japanese resort with few international tourists. There’s also a family park with mini-courses, sledding, and snow tubes for children. The resort is located in Iwate Prefecture in the Appi Highlands, 50 km north of Morioka and 580 km north of Tokyo.

Asahidake - Hokkaido, Japan

Asahidake

Asahidake is an excellent spot for advanced skiers and boarders, offering a variety of alpine terrain and tree skiing. The back-country slopes are set in Daisetsuzan National Park on Mount Asahi in central Hokkaido, about 1 hour east of Asahikawa. Visitors have access to 500 vertical meters of terrain and four groomed trails. Asahidake is officially a national park rather than a resort, so facilities are quite limited which is part of the area’s appeal for skiers and boarders looking to escape the crowds and take on a challenge. The area also features a handful of cross country ski trails, and a number of the hotels offer onsen.

Furano

Furano is a popular ski resort in Hokkaido with 25 km of groomed ski runs. The resort is ideal for families, with varied beginner trails in addition to an attraction called Family Snowland which offers other winter activities like snowmobiling and dog sledding. There are also runs to challenge advanced skiers and boarders, including a World Cup sized half pipe, downhill courses, and terrain parks. Furano’s lifts are exceptionally fast, and the weather is generally sunnier compared to Hokkaido’s other resorts. Furano town, which is located 141 km northeast of Sapporo, can accommodate English-speakers yet it does not exist solely to accommodate skiers and thus remains authentically Japanese.

Want to see all skiing sites in Hokkaido? See Hokkaido Ski Package

Hakuba

A favorite of international tourists, Hakuba comprises 11 different ski resorts. Bordered by 3,000-meter peaks, Hakuba is located the Northern Alps, 44km west of Nagano. The area gained international attention in 1998 when it hosted several competitions during the Winter Olympic Games. With 137 km of piste and more than 200 courses, Hakuba’s resorts offer incredible variety with runs suited to skiers and boarders of all levels. The main village, Happo, is home to some excellent izakayas and restaurants, or there are also quieter villages in the area for those who want to stay away from the crowds.

Niseko 

Niseko - Snowboard Backcountry

Located 100 km southwest of Sapporo, Niseko is one of Japan’s most famous ski resorts. Niseko features 47 km of groomed terrain and is thought to receive more snowfall than any other ski resort in the world. The resort’s trails are ideal for skiers and boarders of all levels, with plenty of pistes geared towards families and beginners. The resort also offers extensive off-trail skiing, which can be accessed through special gates or by participating in a guided tour. Niseko is actually composed of 5 different resorts, the largest of which is the Grand Hirafu. Hirafu Town is known for its excellent après-ski, with many lively bars, restaurants, and karaoke spots.

See more Niseko ski packages

Nozawa Onsen

Nozawa Onsen is located in northern Nagano Prefecture, 46 km northeast of the city of Nagano. Opened in 1924, Nozawa Onsen is one of Japan’s oldest, largest, and most popular ski resorts. The resort features over 50 km of pistes, ideal for skiers and boarders of all levels, including a half pipe, moguls, a 39 degree incline, as well as gentler slopes for beginners. The resort is also ideal for families, with English-speaking instructors available for children’s ski lessons. Nozawa Onsen town is particularly charming and traditional, with narrow cobbled streets and more than 13 public onsen.

Rusutsu

Offering 42 km of groomed slopes, Rusutsu is one of the top ski resorts in Hokkaido. The ski area is spread across three mountains, offering a variety of groomed trails for beginners. The highlight for advanced skiers is the resort’s convenient tree runs and back country, which are accessible straight off the lifts. The hotels in the area offer a great selection of restaurants, plus there are a few smaller restaurants found near the base of the mountain. Kids can enjoy dog sledding, tubing, and snowmobiling, while the resort is also home to pool facilities and onsen. Rusutsu is located 90 minutes southwest of Sapporo.

Sapporo Teine

Sapporo Teine is ideal for day-trips from Sapporo, located 20 km northwest of the city center. The resort attracts novices with its Olympia Zone, which offers wide, gentle slopes for beginners and night skiing. For more advanced skiers, there’s the Highland Zone which includes medium to advanced courses, and off trail runs. Set 1,000 meters above sea level, this upper area provides visitors with fantastic views over Sapporo and the ocean. The resort also includes a snow park with boxes, jumps, and rails, as well as a family park with tubing and sledding.

Tomamu

Tomamu is an upscale ski resorted located in central Hokkaido, 150 km east of Sapporo. This modern, swanky resort includes a 50-meter wave pool, sophisticated restaurants, and sleek hot spring facilities. The resort offers 21 km of slopes, with a variety of runs for beginner and intermediate level skiers, along with ‘expert’ courses and sanctioned off-piste skiing areas. Other activities include cross country skiing, snowmobiling, snow rafting, and heli skiing. For kids, there’s a snow playground, snow boat rides, and a special snow playground. In the evening, check out the resort’s Ice Village, which consists of a restaurant, bar, shop, and wedding chapel housed in domes made of snow and ice.

Yuzawa 

Yuzawa - Naeba Prince Hotel

Yuzawa is one the easiest ski areas to access from Tokyo, located 200 km away from the city and reachable in less two hours by train. Located in Niigata Prefecture, the area encompasses about 20 resorts, all of which are accessible by public transportation. A number of these resorts offer combination lift tickets, and connections that make it possible to ski or snowboard between them. Visitors will generally find beginner slopes near the center of town and more challenging runs around the Mount Naeba resorts. The area also features excellent onsen, with baths available at resorts, hotels, and shinkansen stations, including a few public bath houses.




Source Written by: Jessica Dawdy 

Hokkaido: 11 ways to enjoy Asia’s winter playground

 A winter playground in Asia? You betcha. Here are 11 reasons to stick Hokkaido on your winter must visit list.

From the first snowflake that falls on the central mountaintops in September until the official last day of the ski season in May, rather than quivering under the six-month-long Siberian cold, Hokkaido flourishes through the ice.

Tourism booms as people flock to see the impressive ice sculptures at the Sapporo Winter Festival, welcome the salmon back to spawn at the ‘Come Back Salmon’ festival, watch the lively Japan national dogsled races, glance out over eerie frozen lakes, and of course, ski.

Yet it is thanks to the skiing that Hokkaido’s fixture on the winter travel calendar has truly been established. Skiing in Japan started in the nineties when word got out on what has been described as ‘the world’s best powder snow.’ Ski enthusiasts came from all over the world to discover the driest, lightest, and freshest snow to be skied on. Coupled with the attractive, high-tech ski resorts that shot up during Japan’s hedonistic, late-eighties’ ‘ski-boom’ and Hokkaido ski resorts quickly became the ski destination to be seen at.

Yet that’s all old hat these days. Step a little, or a lot, further away from the slopes and Japan’s second largest island has an astounding line-up of winter activities and attractions, buzzing cities, natural beauty and unique wildlife to discover. Be warned though, with so much to do you won’t want to compromise on the time you spend in Hokkaido—and that counts for non-skiers too.

1. Lively Sapporo

Say to any Japanese you’re heading to Hokkaido and they’ll ask if you are going to Sapporo. Being the main hub of transport to and throughout Hokkaido, this laid back metropolis makes a great place to start any trip to the island.

The transient influx of skiers and snowboarders who stop in the city before moving onto the slopes make Sapporo a refreshing change to exploring Japan’s more historic cities and a great place to enjoy nightlife, local beer, and specialty foods.

Be sure to try some steamed snow crab or the more oddly named hairy crab, while on really cold days go for the famously warming curry soup.

2. Sapporo beer

For many ‘Sapporo’ means beer. Sapporo Breweries, the oldest beer company in Japan, was set up in 1879 after Seibei Nakagawa returned; obviously impressed by the beer he had learnt to brew in Germany.

Today, the current brewing and bottling factory has been moved out of town and the original red brick brewery turned into the popular Sapporo Beer Museum.

Whether you make a trip to the brewery or not, it would be rude not to enjoy a night eating and drinking you way through the local delicacies.

 

3. Sapporo Winter Festival

The highlight of Sapporo’s (and even Japan’s) winter calendar is the Sapporo Winter Festival that springs the city in life in February.

A fantastic display of ice sculptures that take months to plan and weeks to make, line the parks and boulevards while ski jumping, concerts, snow golf, karaoke, and dancing takes place throughout the city and in bars and clubs.

Previous super-sized sculptures have included a replica of Trafalgar Square, the Taj Mahal, Cinderella’s crystal carriage, and even Harry Potter.

4. Powder Appeal

From Sapporo it’s an easy route out to the ski slopes thanks to the comprehensive network of buses and trains to the various resorts.

Niseko accomodation is the most popular resort in Hokkaido by far, continues to grow yearly with skiers and snowboarders coming from all over the world. Expect a laid back and friendly vibe from the locals and the Aussie-strong foreign community, while the snow–covered peaks and never ending, slow falling powder snow guarantees an almost magical environment – a perfect example of niseko ski resort.

5. Onsen

A day of skiing (or in fact any form of sightseeing in Japan) is not complete with the obligatory soak in an onsen (hot spring).

Seated upon three volcanic mountain ranges, Hokkaido’s hot springs have been bubbling away for centuries and offer more than two hundred onsen to choose from.

Each with it’s own claim to healing properties and often with a beautiful snow mountain backdrop, sitting outside in a steamy hot onsen while the snow falls around you is like being sat in the centre of a children’s’ snow dome that has just been shaken.

Just one hour from Sapporo, Noboribetsu Onsen is one of the most popular onsen in Hokkaido attracting more than three million visitors a year. You will however find onsen throughout the island, some hotels even have onsen attached, and often it can be the smaller more remote baths that provide the more authentic experience.

6. Snow monkeys

Of course when temperatures can drop as low as -10°C, it’s not just humans that take to the hot waters.

Images of red-faced snow monkeys bathing neck high in Japan’s onsen are a regular fixture on tourist campaigns, yet surprisingly in Hokkaido these monkeys are hard to spot. While the snow monkey, or Japanese macaque, is not native to the northern island, a troupe of 70 can be found at an onsen in Hakodate on the southern tip of Hokkaido. 

Twenty were brought over about 30 years ago to make a snow monkey onsen attraction although the experiment almost failed when the original monkeys couldn’t be persuaded to take the plunge. Park owners eventually enticed them in with food, and now they can’t get them out.

7. Japanese cranes – a symbol of Japan

If it is more wildlife than action sports that takes your interest, Hokkaido is increasingly drawing animal lovers and photographers to view some of the most breathtaking winter wildlife and landscapes in the world.

As with most animal centers in Japan, you are best advised to skip the Ashiyama Zoo and the Noboribetsu Bear Park and head out to see wild and rarely spotted breeds.

Over in Eastern Hokkaido near the city of Kushiro you’ll find a large number of red-crested white cranes on the 45,000 acres of boreal marsh. Its here where most of the cranes in Japan congregate in the winter and with the river mist, frosty trees, and gentle winds you’ll feel as if you’ve traveled much further into the unknown to see these beautiful and iconic birds.

TIP: Take up a backcountry Japan tour to keep up with your schedule.

8. Winter wildlife

Other wildlife attractions include spotting Whooper Swans at Kussharo Lake as they warm themselves in the hot spring water that flows into the lake; Steller’s Sea Eagles at the port town of Rausu which at over one-meter tall are some of the largest raptures in the world; 600 brown bears that roam Shiretoko National Park; the whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals that can be spotted on tours from Muroran, as well as the wild foxes and deer to be found all over Hokkaido.

9. Eerie ongoings

Over in Abashiri, white-tailed sea eagles and seals can be spotted on board of the Aurora Drift Icebreaker Cruise that takes tourists out three times daily. Crushing through the drift ice that has drifted in from the Sea of Okhotsk, the icy, silent seas and pale cool skies make a breathtaking voyage.

10. Fear of Abashiri prison

Yet for many Japanese, the word ‘Abashiri” lures the same fearful fascination as ‘Alcatraz’ does to westerners.

The prison here, which is still in use today, was set up at the end of the nineteenth century for some of the country’s most hardened criminals.

Getting sent to Abashiri was equivalent to getting sent to Siberia from Russia: the weather harsh and unrelenting. Trapped between the Sea of Okhotsk to the north, Lake Abashiri on the south and Lake Notori to the west, escaping and surviving was unlikely.

Today the original prison is a museum allowing tourists experience what it is like to be trapped in the deepest winter terrain with nothing but the cracking and crunching sound of the slow moving icebergs as they float past to break the silence.

11. The Mysterious Lake

Other effects of the harsh Hokkaido winters can be found at Lake Mashu, the ‘Mysterious Lake,’ so called as it is so rarely seen through the thick mist and the cascading yet completely frozen waterfalls at Sounkyo Gorge, which look as if a new ice age has just begun.

And still there is more. Few places in the world are able to offer such a fascinating and fruitful insight into the beauty and fun of a winter world. It’s almost surprising that it would be found here in Asia, and yet being in Japan you’re glad that it is. Where else would display such respect and appreciation of the harshest of what nature has to offer?

Now, if you can only drag yourself away from the ski slopes, you may be coming back to explore this island for years to come.

Source: Photos and written by Marie Teather