So. I’ve been on holiday in Hakuba with some friends for a devastatingly bad season. We’re getting springtime weather about a month early this year, with the usual snow dumps for this period arriving as rain.

Despite this, I really like the resort and I can see how much better this would be under regular conditions. There’s not much info provided in English by anyone other than tour operators, so I thought I’d write up what I have learned about staying here and getting the best out of the mountain.

The Area: Nagano is a large Japanese town near here, about an hour away by bus. A lot of the 1998 Nagano Olympics were held here in Hakuba.

Hakuba is the supporting town under a set of resorts that line the valley. Here’s a decent map of the resorts

Hakuba basically runs along the train tracks and up to the base of each resort. There aren’t pedestrian walkways, so if you go on foot then you have to share the road with the cars. The bus services on the mountain are ok, but aren’t loop shuttle services, they’re scheduled. This being Japan, they are on time as well. We have hopped on buses at exactly the time they were meant to be at the stop and they have moved on one minute later, so if you aren’t there early you could be waiting an hour for the next bus to come.

There’s a night bus service which costs 300 yen, and you have to buy tickets before you board. The bus services during the day and just after the resorts close are free, though.

Getting here: Train to Nagano/bus to Hakuba is the fastest route, but if your flight arrives too late (or is delayed) then you are in for a 5 hour bus ride from Narita airport. Check with your travel agent or the bus/train timetables.

Staying here: Each of the mountains has some accommodation at the base, and there’s lodges and hotels spread across the valley. We stayed at “Four Seasons Hotel”/Oharuka No-Yu, which is a hotel above Echo Land. Echo Land is an area with a bunch of tourist friendly shops/restaurants/snow gear shops. It is between Hakuba 47 and Happo One, so the buses go down to one of the main streets, across and then back up to the mountain.

General Notes: This is on the main island with easy train/bus access, so there are lots of daytrippers on the weekends. If you were going to take a day off for cultural activities, it should be a Saturday/Sunday. 

Japanese skiers/boarders are at a wide range of abilities. You’ll see people who have been engaged in snow sports all their lives go screaming past you at high speed. You’ll also see people who are obviously struggling with their first experience of snow. They usually have really good green runs for learners at the base of the mountain — No obstacles, really even gradients, but very well used and hard packed snow. If you have learners with you, get them used to their skis/board and then move to the intermediate runs as soon as possible, the ground will be much more forgiving when they fall.

The resorts were done with skiers in mind: wide open flat runs. The level 5 runs (dotted black lines on the maps) usually mean moguls. There aren’t very many areas where you can muck about in the trees without going out-of-bounds. Which brings me to an important point —

You will see areas that look awesome from the chair or the run. Some of these are genuinely awesome and quite safe if you are experienced. Others lead to avalanche danger, hidden obstacles and creeks. Case the area very thoroughly before you duck a rope, because you could easily end up dead if you screw up.

At Niseko, there are forbidden areas between the resorts, but you can do the trees between runs without risk of penalties. They will post that areas are beyond ski patrol and you’ll be personally liable for a rescue if you need it, but experienced groups can safely enjoy these areas up until the ropes are up for the forbidden zones. Hakuba doesn’t do this DMZ stuff: if you go outside the runs, ski patrol will take your pass if they catch you. This frustrates the experienced and adventurous snowboarders, because the most fun terrain is off-limits instead of restricted to people who know what they’re doing.

The Resorts:

Hakuba 47 / Goryu: These two link at the top, so you can travel back and forth between the resorts on the one pass. The higher up, the better the snow and the more expert the other people. If you hike the peak (doesn’t take very long, isn’t too steep) , you can do some excellent drops right over alongside the Alps 4th chair lift. We happily spent a day with 30-40cm fresh snow doing loops around the Alps 3rd chair lift, going in for lunch at the top of the Goryu gondola and then coming back out to the same area. Some nice jumps around the place, ungroomed areas alongside the main run and some moguls for the skiers. Didn’t spend much time lower down the mountain though — mainly busy beginner and intermediate runs from what I saw.

The cat trail for beginners down 47 is quite nice if you want to spend some time checking out the Japanese forest scenery, but is pretty dull so far as the actual boarding goes. Take some photos for your friends/family who don’t do snowsports, because they can respond to this kind of steep, alien landscape better than a flat white expanse of ski run.

Happo One: A few people working on mountain have season passes for just this one mountain: I’m not sure if that’s just random luck or expert opinion, but it’s a big, central resort that covers all the bases: park, long intermediate runs, some excellent ungroomed areas that aren’t out-of-bounds. A friend of a friend took us around here, and we struck out along a ridge to the right (as you look up the mountain) from the topmost lift: it was windswept when we did it, but had the potential for amazing powder runs during better times. There’s an amazing shrine at the base of this one too, which exerted some strange voodoo attraction on me: I have no idea whether it is a Shinto or Buddhist temple, but I’ve gone there twice to meditate briefly next to a massive tree that dominates the clearing below the temple. Weird. Compelling. Check it out if you have a chance.

Iwatake: I loved this mountain the first time I went there, even though the conditions weren’t that good. It isn’t as large as the others, has green runs near the top (better quality snow for any learners you have with you) and a few long challenging runs. I suspect that getting to know this mountain would pay off handsomely on powder days — it feels like the kind of place with some excellent opportunities for powder runs off the edge of the groomers. The reverse face of the mountain is in use as well, so you can respond to the wind/sun conditions over the day. The advanced runs on the reverse side were closed to us, but looked awesome — steep, narrow run. Reminds me of the Gun Barrel at Hotham, though waaaay more awesome 🙂

So yeah, my personal favourite mountain, based on some weird gut instinct from one day’s experience.

Tsugaike Kogen: Furthest big resort from the main part of Hakuba. You have to go to Iwatake and catch the loop bus over, if you aren’t staying at the base of it. Had the most snow of all the resorts in the area while we were there, but we went on a warm day and it was wet and slow. Under better conditions, you could happily spend the several days exploring the entire place. It seems a little less busy than the other resorts which are of similar size. We were told by a local to hike up from the lift above the Jib Park on the right hand side of the mountain and to do a tree run. Sadly, looked like being a really slow proposition under the conditions and we cased the entire mountain looking for an area where we could get some speed. There’s a place at the middle gondola station that you can rent two-person sleds from, and I wish we had done that for the afternoon because it looked like a ridiculous amount of fun.

Other stuff:

Bamboo Good coffee place at Hakuba Station — free wifi and lots of the Australians working on the mountain come in for their daily caffeine intake. Friendly Aussie barista as well, excellent place to get the goss about the mountain for snow conditions, places to eat and places to drink.

Zen Soba noodle restaurant diagonally opposite the 7-11. Awesome food, definitely order their soba dishes and the octopus/olive oil/garlic dish.

I’ll update this article as people comment or email me with their experiences.