Hakuba Ski Diary

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Day 1 – arrival in Hakuba

To get the Hakuba, we hired a car to drive us there from Shiga Kogen, and the journey took 2 hours and 20 minutes. On route we passed vineyards, rice paddies, lots of light industry, and low-density housing – overall it was not very picturesque journey. As we approached Hakuba though, we could see ski runs over the mountain, taking up quite a large area.

In Hakuba, the layout of the town is more like Niseko, with houses, small pensions, some hotels, independent restaurants, and bars, all mixed together. However is far less dense than Niseko, so only 2 or 3 restaurants are within walking distance, and for the rest you need to get a bus to reach them. The layout is quite different from Shiga Kogen, which was dominated by hotels, each of which had an affiliated restaurant and often a bar.

“Happo One” is pronounced “Happo Onay”, and not how you would expect it to be pronounced.

The hotel were we stayed in Hakuba was the Highmount Hotel.

The hotel was not really ski-in (although it could be done, but only if you were skiing in Happo One), and was definitely not ski-out. The hotel room in Hakuba is very small - there's only 2 beds, and a bit of space to move around the beds (which we have filled with luggage), and no hanging space, so we're basically living out of our suitcases.Drying ski gear is very hard, if not impossible, although the owmers will put stuff into the boiler room.

For the first day's skiing here today, we're going on a tour of the mountain provided by the hotel at 9:30 am, which went until 11:45, and which went to the top of the mountain, and came back down to the Sakka 3 lift.

Many of the staff are multi skilled. For example the mountain tour is expertly led by the son of the owning family.

There is a small fridge and a little kettle/hot plate in each room. Beds are not made or changed daily (this is not unusual in Japanese ski hotels) and one small towel per person is changed every few days.

Breakfast is quite ok, the usual Japanese assortment of cuisines, including some blessed bananas and other fruit, quite a rarity. Dinner, which the outside cold drives you to consider having in the hotel, is either a small menu of pizza/pasta/steak at premium but not silly prices, or a pre ordered three course repast at 3150 yen. On the first day there were 60 people in the hotel of whom two were Japanese, and most of the rest were Aussies.

Day 1 – skiing Happo One

A free mountain tour was given by our hotel. It started with the short bus ride to the Sakka lifts, where we had to change our vouchers for lift chips and pay the 1000 yen deposit. The guide was Joe, who was also the chef and helper in the hotel. He was a great skier and knew the mountain well. He took us the the very top where we had great views and we could see the cairns erected for dead mountain victims. walker/climbers could go slightly higher to the very peak, but there were about fifty people admiring the top. A little lower was a Virgin Cafe!

We only covered Happo One, but that showed a lovely variety of slopes and conditions. In particular halfway up the mountain are some beautiful hidden runs. The mountain was fairly quiet, despite it being Saturday in January. The only busy bit was at the top, where a lot of people were admiring the day and the excellent view.

Coming down was a bit challenging for beginners!

Dinner was at "The Pub" which had good English beers - Bass - and usual pub grub like Fish and Chips. Quite good value.

Day 2 – skiing Tsugaike

We took a taxi, which was the only way to get there according to the hotel. It took about 20 to 30 minutes and cost 4000 yen each way. Against this expense, it was super convenient after marching around icy roads in shoes and ski gear. We arranged the return in the morning so we were dropped at the ticket office and picked up afterwards at the same place at four as agreed.

For some reason the chip from Happo One does not work at Tsugaike, so you have to present your paperwork, get a new chip, pay 1000 yen and then get this amount back from the refund machine after skiing.

The resort itself is largely a huge family area with several lifts on the lower slopes, and then a gondola which takes 15 minutes from the mid station – 20 minutes from the bottom – up to the higher slopes. Even up here there are several green trails and few black/mogul/off piste areas.

You do not have to leave the mountain to eat, or even have you boots tuned. There are lots of facilities higher up, including a KFC. Again not too many people at all, and in fact even some green run lifts were not working. Not one real wait for a lift, although a couple of minutes for the gondola.

Morning weather was lovely (temps), but around lunchtime some high cloud came in with a colder front and heavier clothes would have been welcome.

There seemed to be quite a compact and varied village at the base, with plenty of restaurants, smaller accommodation options and services. Quite a few were ski in/ski out or very close to the runs.

Day 3 – Hakuba47 + Goryu

We went to another resort yesterday, called Habukba47 + Goryu, which was good. There are about 7 resorts we can ski at, but of these only 4 are a reasonable size, with a Gondola. We've been to 3 of the 4 so far (each of which is roughly the size of Perisher/blue-cow), and have 3 days skiing left, and will probably visit the last one tomorrow, and then ski our favourite on the last day.

Also, we have found that Jetstar fly into Osaka for a cheaper fare than we paid, and have found places that charge around AU$50 per night per person, but for fairly basic accommodation. So this means that it may be possible to have a week's ski holiday in Japan for $2000 or a bit less, which is about what it costs in Australia.

The idea that Japan is always expensive for food is quite wrong. Ski lunches of the type found around the world are about 1000 yen plus a drink. For dinners the most expensive that we found was a Thai Restaurant ant 4000 yen each, and the cheapest about 2000 yen, all including a couple of beers, sake or soft drinks.

At Hakuba, with this pass system, you have to ski a resort for the day (i.e. passes are semi-integrated, not fully integrated). Also you need to return lift pass at the end of each day to get back the Y1000 deposit that you need to pay each morning for your ski pass.

Day 4 – Happo One

Skied at Happo One. Dad had a full day group lesson (cost Y4000, and there were 3 students in the class, all English-speakers). The class was given by a Japanese instructor in basic English, and went back-to-basics and focussed on improving turning technique. He thoroughly enjoyed and recommended the lesson.

We had dinner at Kikoyo-ya, an authentic sushi restaurant. The sushi chef was very entertaining, and had a big blowfish certificate on the wall (since the blowfish is a poisonous fish, unless you prepare it in a very exact way). We both had the Sushi set, and the meal and sushi were extremely good. Cost for two people including beers was about sixty australian dollars.

Then to get back to the hotel we waited outside in the cold and snow for 15 minutes a bus that never came! Eventually we caught a bus going in the other direction. Transport is a very big issue in Hakuba. There is a bus system with a series of number stops, and buses run every 45 minutes or so. But there are no bus stop shelters, and conditions can be very cold and windy, and sometimes buses run late, and sometimes they run early, and sometimes they just don't come at all. Combine the erratic service, with an infrequent service, with the cold conditions, and the result is that travelling for dinner is not much fun. Some restaurants (e.g. the “Thaifoon”) provide a shuttle service that will collect you for dinner and take you home again afterwards, and this is a good option. Also make sure that your hotel is right next to a bus stop (so that you don't have far to walk on the icy roads), and try to go for a hotel which is next to a number of restaurants (so that you can sometimes avoid using the bus service altogether). The Highmount Hotel, for example, is friendly enough, quite new and clean, but to get anywhere is hard, starting with the icy lane outside. Some of the hotels that we would look at next time instead for our accommodation are the Hakuba Tokyu Hotel, and the Monike Hotel, or perhaps a hotel in “Echo Land” (which is near Happo One's Olympic ski jump).

Day 5 – Iwatake

Skied Iwatake resort today. The Iwatake Shuttle Bus went form bus stop number 2, and they dropped us back outside the hotel on the return journey, which was nice. However the conditions were very bad, with heavy wet snow falling throughout the day, which created white-out conditions. As a result, sometimes a lump in the ground would be a clump of powder snow that you would cut through like a hot knife through butter, and sometimes a lump would be a mogul of compacted ice that would stop you cold, and both looked identical in the white-out conditions. So by 2:30 PM we had both had enough and headed back. It's a pity, because I would have liked to have seen Iwatake in better conditions.

We had lunch at the nice Japanese restaurant across the car park from the Gondola, which we both enjoyed. The restaurant was very hot, with a big mountain stove with 3 kettles boiling on top of it. Food was very warm and filling.


Day 6 – Journey to Sydney

Places to consider for next time

Mount Zao Narasharwa (?sp / pronounciation) onsen