Skiing in Hokkaido

Hokkaido (北海道) is the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, with a much colder climate than the rest of the country. When Tokyo and Kyoto are absolutely sweltering in summer, Hokkaido is bearable; and when winter comes, Hokkaido experiences sub-zero temperatures day & night and, more importantly, it lies under a deep blanket of powder snow.

You don’t go to Hokkaido for the terrain – gradients tend to be fairly gentle, and more challenging terrain is pretty hard to come by. Furthermore, most of the skiing in Hokkaido happens below 1,000m. To those used to conditions in Europe and North America (or Oz & New Zealand) it may sound surprising that you can have a viable ski resort at such low altitudes; but in Hokkaido, the winter snowline is sea level. Take the city of Sapporo; though just above sea level, it gets absolutely covered in snow through the winter months. Sapporo’s roads are 4 lanes wide in summer, but in winter 2 lanes are used to pile up all the snow – they end up with two working lanes passing between vertical walls of snow, with a fleet of snow machines doing the rounds every night to keep the roads open this way. My local telephone box was buried within a snow embankment – city workers actually cut a little snow cave to keep it open! Sapporo’s main downtown area is all connected up by underground walkways which really helps when it’s minus 10 degrees above ground and you’re walking to the next whisky bar… I was always amazed at how many people live in Sapporo but don’t ski – I wouldn’t want to put up with those winters if I wasn’t an avid snowboarder. But I am one, so Hokkaido was pretty much heaven to me!

And it’s not just the quantity of the snow, it’s the fantastic quality of it. The storm systems which drop their loads on Hokkaido originate in Siberia; from there, the super-chilled clouds cross the Sea of Japan, pick up a bit of moisture, and then dump it on the first land they hit. It’s fluffy, super-fine, super-dry, super-light, perfect champagne powder. On top of all this, the crowds aren’t usually too bad (Niseko aside) and the facilities are good, so you can basically spend the day lapping the trees and scoring freshies the whole time. Ridiculous.

But where exactly should you go skiing in Hokkaido? The most famous resort is Niseko (though perhaps a little too famous – unlike the other hills, it actually gets tracked out), but my favourite is probably Sapporo Teine.

For a suggested Hokkaido ski tour route, see here; also check out my quick guide to Sapporo; for my reviews of Hokkaido ski resorts, read below:

1. Sapporo Teine

2. Rusutsu

3. Niseko

4. Furano

5. Kiroro

(For skiing elsewhere in Japan, click here)

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Sapporo Teine Overview

Man, I love Teine… located just outside Sapporo, Teine is a small, unglamorous local hill which despite being the venue for the 1972 Olympic downhill events has very little international reputation, yet consistently has perhaps the best in-bounds powder skiing I’ve ever experienced. Every time you go you get steep & deep freshies all day, and I don’t know any other place where that’s the case (Rusutsu comes close, but Teine has steeper terrain)

(* this is the max vertical drop available for a single run; not necessarily the same as the difference between the highest and lowest points, as they are not directly connected by skiable terrain)

Homepage and piste map

Terrain at Sapporo Teine

Sapporo Teine ( 手稲 ) is divided into two areas, Teine Highland (higher up) and Teine Olympia (lower down, where the Olympic cauldron still stands). While there is a run connecting them, it’s a cat track, and once you’re in the Olympia area you have to take the gondola to get back up to Highland. Olympia is better for learners, but if you’re at Teine for the powder you want to focus on Highland and don’t waste time at Olympia (the base area & ticket office are at Highland, which is the final stop for the bus – don’t get off too early as I did on my first visit. I asked a staff member where the ticket office was and he ended up giving me a ride up to Highland)

The vertical drop for the whole ski area is around 700m, but this includes Olympia – the top to bottom vertical drop for Highland alone is more like 500m, and with it being a pretty steep gradient the runs don’t take long. But when you’re blasting through the trees and up to your arse in powder with a big grin on your face, who cares? The lift lines are usually short and the lifts are fast, so you can just keep lapping the trees and enjoying run after run of deep, dry, beautiful powder. There’s a decent terrain park set up too, but honestly who hits the park when there’s so much pow begging to be ridden?!

Here’s my brother modelling the Teine powder:

Sweetest Teine off-piste powder spots

When I spent a winter in Sapporo, the old summit cable car was still running; unfortunately, by the time of my subsequent visit it had been taken out of service leaving just the Summit Express chairlift. While the chairlift is nice and fast, the loss of the cable car means that the sweetest spot on the mountain now requires a hike from the upper chairlift station. It’s still definitely worth doing once or twice per visit, but you’ll get far more laps in by mostly hitting the trees off the side of the piste from the summit chairlift. You’ll also see on the piste map there are a couple of pink-shaded areas of trees – these are what they call ‘nature zones’, where off-piste riding is officially permitted. Aside from these ‘nature zones’, the other off-piste areas are not officially open for riding, though I’ve never experienced or even heard of Teine’s ski patrol taking any action over people going off-piste; they generally turn a blind eye, and it’s pretty obvious that people go in there. The best treasure-trove of powder, apart from the old cable car area, is the section of trees to skier’s left of the ‘Women’s Giant Slalom’ (女子大回転) run.

In order to hit the area that the old cable car accessed, you’ll need to hike across from the top of the chairlift, taking a right (i.e. skier’s left) and walking over to the big TV masts. The snow will likely be very deep, but there is a cat track you can walk on – just find the skull and crossbones DANGER signs and walk past them like a boss (…although maybe try not to be too blatant about it, as it’s just behind the ski patrol hut)

Once you reach the TV towers, strap in, drop in, and enjoy a short but oh-so-sweet blast through the steep and deep powder field below you – just make sure that you get over to your right once you’re down to the trees and that you take the cat track heading right, over to the old cable car lift line (the lower portion of which is now officially a run) as that’s your ski out. If you miss that, unstrap and trudge back up to it – don’t try and keep riding down in the hope you can eventually ride down to Olympia. I know from experience that you can’t, and it was a slow and exhausting hike out to the road through waste deep snow. Thankfully it was a clear and sunny day – riding alone as I was that day, I’d have been in a tricky spot if the weather had turned nasty.

How to get to Sapporo Teine

Access is easy from Sapporo station – just take the JR train to Teine station (15 mins) and then there’s a JR bus (bus number 70) up the hill from there – wait for the bus in front of Mister Donuts outside the south exit. The bus takes about 20 minutes, and goes at 9.10, 10.15, 11.30 (these things change, so obviously double-check this) plus a few afternoon departures (but go in the morning – while there is night skiing at Teine, it doesn’t cover the good bits). The bus is around 400 yen, but the tourist information centre in Sapporo Station (north-west corner of the main concourse) sells a combo train, bus, and ski lift ticket which is significantly cheaper than paying for them separately. As always for Japanese trains, check Hyperdia for train times (there’s a good explanation here for how to use it)

Sapporo Teine Summary

In short, Teine is one of my favourite mountains anywhere. The ski area may be small, but the off-piste tree skiing is epic and the snow is pure fantasy wet dream stuff, and doesn’t get tracked out like it does at busier hills. I had an awesome day basically every single time I went there, the lone exception being an early-season December visit before they’d had enough snow.

There’s no accommodation at Teine though – it’s a local hill for Sapporo city – and most ski holiday visitors to Hokkaido are probably going to prefer to stay on-mountain in Niseko, which makes sense. But if you’re heading to Niseko and fancy a couple of nights in Sapporo en route, Teine is well worth hitting and may well be a better day’s riding than you score at Niseko; and if you’re visiting or living in Sapporo, then Teine is definitely the best choice for your regular riding. The view from the top of Sapporo city and Ishikari Bay isn’t bad either.

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Rusutsu Overview

Rusutsu kicks ass. It’s in the same neighbourhood as Niseko (on a clear day they’re visible from one another across the flank of Mount Yotei) so gets the same awesome snow, but it isn’t nearly as busy so you get more of that lovely dry powder to yourself!

(* = max vertical drop available for a single run; not the same as the difference between the highest and lowest points, as those are in two different areas and not directly connected by skiable terrain)

Homepage and piste map

Skiing at Rusutsu

As with most Hokkaido resorts, the terrain at Rusutsu ( ルスツ ) isn’t particularly steep or challenging; yet it has the best tree skiing I’ve ever experienced (along with Teine). If you’re staying in Sapporo, I’d always recommended Rusutsu as a day-trip ahead of Niseko – it’s a bit closer so you waste less time on the bus, and I always had a much better day at Rusutsu than I did at Niseko. On the other hand, if you’re staying in Niseko I’d recommend taking at least one day to head over to Rusutsu – you can usually arrange a transfer through your accommodation in Niseko, or you can just use the public Donan Bus ( 道南バス ). Another option is to hit Rusutsu en route from Niseko to Sapporo, taking the morning Donan bus, shoving your stuff in a locker at Rusutsu while you hit the slopes, and then taking the evening bus from Rusutsu to Sapporo station. Make sure to double check the departure time at the customer service desk before you start riding! I did this on a short Hokkaido ski tour while I was living in Kyoto (a tour with a very eventful return leg featuring a cancelled ferry, a scissor-wielding lunatic, and the grave of a legendary hero)

A downside to Rusutsu is that it probably isn’t a particularly good place to stay. There isn’t really a resort as such there, just a couple of massive hotels and the small local town; if you have the budget you can stay at the Rusutsu Hotel (the main base area) or the Westin, though as nice as they surely are it’s probably still quite boring once you finish riding for the day. The weird and wonderful stuff in the main base area hotel (an ersatz Swiss Alpine village, various themed restaurants and shops selling random tat, and a demonic singing tree) is all quite amusing while you’re waiting for the bus back to Sapporo, but probably not for much longer than that! There are also a few pensions nearby.

Sweet powder spots at Rusutsu

The sweet spots you want to be hitting are basically anywhere through the trees on Mount Isola; cutting into the trees from the top lift station down to the bottom of the no.3 and no.4 quad chairs will see you floating in deep pow and putting in lovely big turns through the nicely spaced trees.

Rusutsu access information

Coming from Sapporo, get the combo bus & lift ticket from the tourist information travel desk in JR Sapporo station (north-west corner of the main concourse). From Niseko, ask your accommodation if they can arrange transfers, or use the local Donan Bus

Summary

Rusutsu isn’t a place for hitting gnarly terrain, but it’s an absolutely brilliant place for that heavenly feeling all riders crave of floating in the driest and fluffiest of powder, with off-piste freshies available all day long. It has never let me down.

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Niseko Ski Resort Overview

Located around two hours from Sapporo, Niseko ( ニセコ ) is Hokkaido’s most famous resort, and probably the most famous in Japan. It’s sometimes referred to as Japan’s Whistler, although those who know both mountains will say there’s no contest – Whistler has more vert, more lifts, more runs, more parks, more pipes, more terrain, more nightlife, more everything… more everything except snow, that is! And in the snow department, Niseko wins hands down – it gets more snow (a whopping 15 metres annual snowfall), and the snow is better. None of that sticky wet coastal BC stuff, Niseko’s snow is the real deal; fluffy, light, and dry – exactly what you want under your board.

Homepage and piste map

Terrain, snow, off-piste, nightlife, etc

While Niseko may not compare favourably size-wise against Whistler, it is the biggest and best developed ski area in Hokkaido (though not the biggest in Japan – those are on the main Honshu island). Niseko is where all the gaijin (read: Aussie!) ski bums flock for the season, along with hordes of Aussie and Kiwi tourists escaping their summer for a week of powder. Its size isn’t necessarily a good thing as it gets much more crowded than other Hokkaido resorts and the powder actually gets tracked out by lunch. But, overall, Niseko is definitely considered the Top Dog of Hokkaido ski resorts and if you want to actually stay in resort while skiing Hokkaido (not possible at smaller places like Teine), Niseko is your best bet as it’s the closest thing to an Alpine mountain village you’ll find (though you could also consider Furano).

I only ever actually rode at Niseko three times – the first two were day trips while living in Sapporo, and the third was on a quick Hokkaido ski tour while I was living in Kyoto a few years later.

Unfortunately, the weather was poor to awful on each of those days, and I never had the chance to go right up to the top – bit of a problem when the ski resort consists of four linked areas, and the place they’re linked is up at the top! When that happens, skiing down into a different area can mean you’re going to have to take the bus to get back to where you started. Not the end of the world, but certainly a pain in the ass. Add in the large numbers of people skiing there and the resulting lack of freshies compared to other resorts in the area, and I’m yet to have an awesome day at Niseko in three attempts – but with that said, Niseko is a good size and has decent terrain and amazing snow, and it would clearly be awesome on the right day. In my experience though, Teine and Rusutsu were always better – fewer people, more fresh tracks, more fun, and in Teine’s case, better steep terrain. On top of that, when I was living in Sapporo a day trip to Niseko involved an early morning train or bus, taking almost three hours from my front door to the snow – whereas I could be at Teine in a fraction of the time:

How to get to Niseko ski resort

Most visitors to Niseko will arrive at Chitose airport from where it’s a 2-hour(ish) bus transfer. There’s a good access info page here, but if you want to hit Niseko from Sapporo the best way to do this is to visit the tourist information travel centre in Sapporo station (north-west corner of the main concourse) and get their combo train / bus & lift ticket package – it’s way cheaper than buying them separately, and the staff give you clear instructions with train times etc. If you’ve arrived in Hokkaido by ferry to Otaru, you’ll likely be spending the night in Otaru and then from there it’s only an hour or so by train to Kutchan ( 倶知安 ) station just below Niseko – you can take the local bus / taxi from Kutchan up to Niseko.

Niseko Ski Resort Summary

Even though I think Niseko isn’t always quite all it’s cracked up to be (or in any case I’ve always had bad luck there meaning it didn’t live up to the hype), it’s definitely a good hill and given that Teine is a local Sapporo hill and Rusutsu basically just has a big hotel rather than a village, Niseko probably is the best place to stay if you’re going to Hokkaido for a ski holiday. If you’re staying in Sapporo en route to Niseko, it’s well worth looking into having a day at Teine; also consider taking a day trip over to Rusutsu from Niseko if you fancy a change of scenery.

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Furano Overview

Furano ( 富良野 ) is a small town in central Hokkaido with a largish ski area (by Japanese standards) and awesome snow. Wonderful snow does of course come as standard in Hokkaido, but in the central area of the island the snow’s even lighter and drier.

As Furano is an actual town and not just a ski area, it makes a good alternative to Niseko as an in-resort base for a ski holiday in Hokkaido – several other ski areas are located an hour or so from Furano, including Kamui Ski Links and Tomamu, so it’s possible to stay in Furano and visit multiple ski areas. I never stayed there though as I was living in Sapporo at the time, and you can hit Furano as a day trip from there – this involves a long rail journey (2.5 to 3 hours depending on your connection) so you only really get half a day on the hill, but perfectly doable.

Homepage and piste map

Furano’s snow and terrain

As for the hill itself, thankfully the days are long gone when Furano had a strictly enforced zero-tolerance approach to off-piste riding and would even have ski patrollers shadow groups of gaijin snowboarders to make sure they didn’t try it – I speak from experience! We managed to give ours the slip but then I rode the ropeway line and got collared by a patroller waiting at the bottom. Got a warning, and stuck to the pistes after that.

The mountain has a slightly unusual twin layout, with two distinct sides (Furano Zone and Kitanomine Zone) with completely separate base areas but connected by the Link Run & Link Lift near the top. Arriving at Furano Station puts you near the Kitanomine base area (though you’ll need to hop in a taxi or bus to get there anyway).

The best powder spots are the ungroomed run called Premium Zone on the Kitanomine side, off-piste under the lift in the link zone, and through the gate at the top of the Downhill Romance No.3 chairlift on the Furano side (cutting back to skiers left to get back to the run). Premium Zone is quite a small area so does get tracked, but you can do the short hike up the ridge from there to get into the trees on the other side, or keep going to the next ridge & bowl beyond that.

How to get to Furano

It’s quite far for day trips from Sapporo to Furano (though you certainly can hit it that way), but Furano is definitely a good choice of base for a Hokkaido powder trip and offers a cheaper, more chilled, much less crowded, much-less-overrun-by-summer-holidaying-Aussies-and-Kiwis alternative to Niseko.

If you’re flying in to Hokkaido, Furano is about a 2-hour bus transfer from New Chitose airport. The train connections aren’t good and it would take at least 3 hours by rail, so it’s better to arrange a bus transfer.

Coming from Sapporo, the best option is probably the bus & lift ticket combo packages available from the tourist information centre in JR Sapporo station (located at the north-west corner of the main concourse). If you want to DIY it and go by train, check the timetables and it’s better catch a train which enables you to transfer at Takikawa ( 滝川 ) rather than Asahikawa ( 旭川 ); going via Takikawa it takes around 150 minutes, whereas changing at Asahikawa will add an extra 30 minutes or so to your journey. This happened to us because we missed the train we’d intended to catch – the one good thing about that was we saw some cool ice sculptures at Asahikawa station. Also the views of the Daisetsuzan area were good from the train… but really, you want to change at Takikawa! (As always in Japan, use Hyperdia to check train times; see here for a good explanation of how to use it)

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Kiroro Ski Resort Overview

Homepage and piste map

Terrain, snow, and transportation for Kiroro

In addition to Teine, the other ski area I visited in the immediate Sapporo area was Kiroro (キロロ) located in the mountains behind the port of Otaru (it’s 30 minutes by train from Sapporo to Otaru, from where you can take a bus to Kiroro; but it’s better to get a direct bus & lift ticket combo deal from the tourist information centre in JR Sapporo station). I only went there once, and while it was pretty decent I didn’t love it as much as Teine – it also takes a bit longer to get there, so after checking it out I didn’t bother with it again. With that said, it’s a decent-sized ski area (in Hokkaido terms i.e. pretty small if you’re used to European mega-resorts) with the amazing quality and quantity of powder snow that comes as standard in Hokkaido and a fair bit of tree skiing, it wasn’t at all crowded, and they have the usual modern lift infrastructure with fast, comfortable lifts. The main problem I had with it was that much of the mountain has a pretty tame gradient with just a few steeper sections, hence Teine being my Sapporo hill of choice.

I don’t want to knock Kiroro as it was good (and if you’re staying in Otaru it makes sense to ride at Kiroro), but if you’re looking for powder near Sapporo you should probably hit Teine. If you’re up for travelling further than Teine, you may as well go all the way out to Niseko, Furano, or Rusutsu.

Kiroro Ski Resort Summary

A decent hill near Sapporo with typically awesome Hokkaido snow; it’s worth checking out, but those looking for consistently steep terrain to go with their powder will be happier at Sapporo Teine.

Resources and Useful Links for Riding in Hokkaido

Check out my quick guide to Sapporo

Search on Trivago (affiliate link) to quickly compare hotel prices across the various booking sites. Airbnb is also a good option in Japan.

World Nomads has winter sports cover. World Nomads travel insurance has been designed by travelers for travelers. If you leave home without travel insurance or your policy runs out, you can buy or extend while on the road.

(This can be an important point, as I once found out the hard way in Bangkok)

*We receive a fee when you get a quote from World Nomads using this link. We do not represent World Nomads. This is not a recommendation to buy travel insurance.

Homepage and piste map

Snow Forecast for Teine (snow-forecast.com does exactly what it says on the tin – my go to for accurate snow forecasts)

Use Hyperdia to work out the train schedules in Japan (guide to using Hyperdia here)

Click the banner to order a JR Pass (read more on whether you should get a JR Pass):

Any questions about skiing in Hokkaido? Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.