Korean Job Discussion Forums

[djshin]

wheres the best place to go in japan to snowboard?

[BobbyOrr]

I've been looking into it, because I want to do my winter vacation in Japan. Looks like the North Island, Hokkaido area is the place to go. There are a number of resorts to choose from, with no clear winners. I got a lot of info from this site: www.snowjapan.com

[djshin]

thanx

[blackjack]

My family went to this one Niseko Grand Hirafu (I think) last year (didn't even drop in and visit). Fresh powder every day, rivals if not betters north american slopes

[BobbyOrr]

[demaratus]

Hakuba is nice. Its near Nagano, the slopes are decent and there are few people there. The snow is hit and miss though, not as nice as Niseko (at least by reputation).

[Vimfuego]

Out of interest when does the ski season start in Japan? I was planning a pre-Christmas trip, is that a little early?

[ippy]

Last year it was definitely a bit too early. This was hugely disappointing because i moved from hamamatsu to nagano especially for a glorious long season of milling about on myoko.

Heres the nagano break down for last year.

There was an awesome drop around mid november that guaranteed a bit of covering on hakuba. Unfortunately only a teensy bit of 47/goryu was open, and was predominantly ice, but it beat the crap out of sitting in your house praying for snow.

The first consistent drop occured about christmas. It lasted a good few weeks. After one session on suginohara, the powder was just ridiculous fun at that point that i bought my season pass (no seki on the pass though, but if youre a powder *beep*, you really want to hit seki). Anyway, around mid january it all started raining until the start of feb when we got another big dump. Then it was light snow, bit of sunshine, and smatterings of rain for the rest of the month.
Around the start of march there was one last heavy drop but the snow was getting slushy and suginohara sucked. Luckily i had a massive fall on their cross course and twisted my knee so that was the end of my season

Anyways, thats the weather conditions from last year to the best of my memory. Three years previous, japan was snowing from november to march almost non stop, so maybe youll get super lucky. Also as it turned out, while everyone in honshu was crying about the lack of snow last year on snowjapan, the peeps in hokkaido were having a ball.

Anyway, if you are going to japan, top recommendation would be niseko. If cost isnt too much of a problem youll not really want to go anywhere. Especially that early into the season.

If you are thinking nagano though youre spoiled for choice (particularly if you have your own transport - myoko, hakuba, nozawa, and shiga kogen all within spitting distance), but youre also in the hands of the gods

If youre in the region, dont miss myoko. Suginohara is just beautiful, the tree riding is great, theres some great powder to just mess around in and the security doesnt give a crap if you decide to make your own path down the mountain.