We love the tiny ski areas in Japan and getting easy lift-accessed powder, so you’d think that we would dislike Niseko, which is the anthesis to the tiny off-the-beaten-path areas. Niseko is definitely not the best ski area for easy lift-accessed powder due to the crowds, but nonetheless we’ve rated it as the best overall ski resort in Japan because of the many other elements where it shines.

We return to Niseko each time we visit Japan for its contrasts to the little ski areas. It’s busy and this is what makes the Hirafu village great with its vibe, bar hopping and socialisation. And whilst the ski area was busy, the lift lines at Niseko were not the longest that we experienced whilst in Japan, and the lines were definitely way shorter than we’ve experienced at various North American resorts.

With respect to the skiing, we managed to get really lucky one day with a morning of fresh lines in the sidecountry. There had been no fresh snow in the past 24 hours, which is possibly why there weren’t the hordes out there chasing it, yet the gates hadn’t been open the prior day and the snow was divine! We know some of the Niseko terrain reasonably well which probably also helped, although it reinforced for us that those new to Niseko would benefit from a guide considering the fickleness of the weather and the likely implications for lift operations and gate openings.

This trip also cemented that it’s incredibly rare that all of the Niseko terrain is open. Firstly some of the lifts weren’t running due to maintenance issues, then there was a little bit of wind so the old lift relic lifts didn’t run, and then there was avalanche risk in the upper ski area that hadn’t been adequately controlled. It doesn’t take much for Niseko to become a very shrunken ski area. Thankfully we had options for other powder skiing pursuits including a day of cat skiing at Iwanai.

This trip also reinforced a few other observations:
- It’s getting harder and harder to find a restaurant for dinner, but there were lots more food trucks this season
- There are lots and lots of beginners at Niseko and they bring big money – no wonder most lift development is targeted at beginners
- The traffic and pedestrian congestion around Hirafu is a problem – if only they’d had the foresight to plan the integration of the ski area and Hirafu village and put in another ski trail and lift that connected the lower village with the slopes
- Niseko seems to have become less child friendly with less options for child care, group ski lessons, and kids snow parks
- Prices for lots of elements of a Niseko trip have skyrocketed, but there is so much demand so I guess they can get away with it

Whilst in Niseko, we stayed at Always Niseko which is a good value hotel. You can see our review here. Later we moved to The Maples which is an exquisite property that backs onto the Family Run.

You can see how we rate Niseko for various categories on our Hokkaido ski resort ratings.
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I stayed in Jan-Feb 2024 for 3 weeks and again had a great time, after visiting in 2020 just before covid. It actually wasn't too crowded, only slightly more so than in 2020, longest lift wait time was ~15 minutes at bottom in the morning, but never more than 1 or 2 minutes up the top of the mountain. I always got a solid days skiing without much wait time, with only a few days when top lifts got closed. We got 80cm in 4 days just after I arrived, with lots of fluffy untracked just off piste, even after a week. The thing about this place is the size, the options for going off piste, and the reliability and quality of the snow, it often just keeps coming down on and off for weeks. One gets bored just slashing powder by the 2nd week, but there are other resorts around (Rusutsu, Kiroro, or back to Sapporo to Furano and others). The lifts are just ok, but the main Hirafu one is being upgraded for 2025, which will help with crowds.
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I've been visiting the Niseko United ski resort since 2008. During that time, there has been a huge amount of investment in and over-development of the ski towns (Grand Hirafu, Hanazono, Niseko Village & Annupuri) including over 20 high rise apartment and hotel complexes. Unfortunately there's been next to no development of the actual ski hill and lift infrastructure.

The reality now is that during a week's "skiing" most time is spent standing in lift lines and not skiing the great powder. There's very few high capacity or express lifts, no lift line management to ensure lifts run at full capacity and the ancient lifts that service the upper alpine area are regularly closed due to wind.

Skiing smaller Japanese resorts or the big North American resorts has become a vastly superior holiday experience to "skiing" at Niseko.
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We are a group of 5, we skied Niseko early Feb, the previous review nailed it exactly. We stayed down the bottom of Hirafu, my only critical advice would be stay at the top of the hill and you may enjoy it the most.Getting food was if you're lucky and if you wanna walk it in heavy sometimes wet snow, most eateries were overcrowded if you got a seat and some were really stupid expensive.

Shuttle busses were minibuses that started at 8.30 and stopped at 7pm and in the morning considering we were at stop 14, they were full by the second stop and mostly full till late morning and few between. We managed to find getting up early and walking the 500mt uphill hike with all ya klobber would get you to the lift for 1 or 2 runs before the queues started. A couple of times we caught the bus from town to Hanazono and skied there as it didn’t get crowded till later.

The eateries on the mountain were magnificent, crowded but with some patience we always got a seat at feeding times and the service was typical Japanese excellent and food was great, more of a meal than take away which we often washed down by the mighty one meter tower of courage (beer).

I personally found the snow wet, lots of it and the trails were nice and long and excellent first few runs but chopped up by early arvo. Access to the mountains capacity was difficult till you done it a few times as many of the higher lifts weren’t working so finding the links become a chore.

All in all it was another world ski resort experience.
And next time I’d know the drill.
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Niseko is quite polarising because it really depends on your perspective of what’s important for you in a Japan snow holiday. You may love it because it offers lots of terrain, it’s vibrant and has a big village in Hirafu with lots of variety of accommodation, lots of restaurants and nightlife. Or you may hate it because it’s over-priced, busy, too expensive, has lift queues, and easy pickings for powder are ripped up quickly. You can’t have the best of both worlds because popular usually equates to expensive, and easy-access fresh powder and a vibrant slopeside village are usually mutually exclusive. What no one debates about Niseko is the quality and quantity of the powder and terrain, which is partly why Niseko has become so famous. We still love Niseko because it has so much to offer and for those of us willing to put in just a little bit or a lot of work, fresh powder in Niseko is still possible. Or if you’ve got plenty of yen, there are backcountry pursuits where you don’t have to work. You can go cat skiing, sled skiing or heli skiing to increase your chances of getting fresh powder.

The 2022/23 season seemed to be a bit of a schmozzle for Niseko, which appeared to be hit harder by Covid than many other Japanese ski areas that don’t rely on international tourism so much. The Japanese government decided rather late to open the country, which left lots of organisations scrambling for staff, and extreme staffing shortages were seen across many sectors including lift operations, ski school, child care, and shuttle buses. Restaurants were particularly hard hit. Getting into a Niseko restaurant has been problematic for some time and Jan 2023 seemed trickier than usual. More food trucks popped up in Hirafu, which made for an easy dinner alternative some nights. We found it possible to get into restaurants by walking in or ringing around, whereas if you only looked at online booking systems for restaurants, they all appeared to be sold out. It helped that we weren’t a group of 10!

Lunch at one of the Annupuri cafeterias was a debacle, and they had only one vending machine (only in Japan!) to order lunch, so the queue for that was about 45 minutes.

It was nice to see some new lifts at Niseko, which is starting to bring Niseko into the realm of being a world class ski resort. The Hanazono #1 changed from a quad to a 6-pack chair to help with uplift capacity, and a short gondola was added to target the Park Hyatt beginners. Like Niseko Village in recent years, lift investment has gone into beginners only.

Lift queues were problematic for the Hirafu Gondola early in the morning. As is common across Japan, part of the problem was that that they were weren’t fully loading the cabins due to pandemic issues, but they were bad at this pre-pandemic too. Other open-air lifts weren’t much better due to a lack of efficient loading procedures, plus there were some people who thought they had pushing-in down to an art because they’ve practised it so much back home. Hirafu has announced a new lift for 2023-24 to help with lifting capacity from the base, which is well overdue.

Niseko continues to be a lovely multi-cultural melting pot. Due to Covid there were fewer Chinese about and lower hotel prices, whilst other Asians, Euros and North Americans were enjoying Niseko. Whilst Australians were the first foreigners to descend on Niseko, their numbers seemed to have dwindled in 2023 (possibly due to the pricing) but they made up for it with its presence. There are still plenty of nightlife spots where you can forget you’re in Japan, including bars that proudly serve VB beer and chicken parmas. At one spot I asked for a Japanese sake and was greeted with a guffaw!

One day we went cat skiing at Iwanai, which was filled with face shot after face shot. You can see our Iwanai cat skiing review here.

We stayed at the Mountainside Palace in Central Hirafu in a 2 bedroom apartment that had plenty of space and the location in Central Hirafu was unbeatable. You can see our review of MSP here.

You can also check out our thoughts on the pros and cons of Niseko on the overview page.
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My son and I traveled from NYC to Niseko in search of this dormant volcano's legendary powder. A quick meterology lesson: the damp air flows east over the Sea of Japan, rises up Hokaido mountains and dumps consistent snow. We loved the mountain, although the year we went was not one of the better seasons for powder. A must is OB through Gate 9, through the rolling meadows (snowboards stay out due to some flats) and down into the white birch forest on the west side of the ridge. Some of the best skiing we have ever experienced? My son and Ioved it. The base village is modern with good restaurants.
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The winter season of 2019-2020 was historically bad for Japan, however we got lucky with powder 4 out of 5 days in early February. Overall I was impressed by the great potential of the mountain, especially outside of the gates. However if you want an authentic Japanese experience, you won't find it at Niseko.

Crowds were moderate, and certain areas tended to attract more people than others. Most of the low hanging fruit got tracked out by 10 AM, but there was always powder to find if you were clever or willing to work for it. The Hirafu gondola tended to have a long queue, however it moved rather quickly, usually about a 5 minute wait. One major choke point, however was at the Annupuri gondola. While the cabins in theory fit 6 people, the ski racks are too small to hold any powder skis, so you can only fit 3-4 people (very uncomfortably with gear inside). Combine this with frequent high winds causing the gondola to run slowly, and you have a recipe for a half hour wait. However considering the amazing run we had just had off the back side, the wait was well worth it. Pro tip: grab a hot coffee from the vending machine for the ride up!

Some of the best terrain can be found out of gate 11 under the Niseko Village gondola, however in low tide there are lots of bamboo shoots to bushwhack through at the bottom. Other easy sidecountry can be found from gate 4 down towards Hanazono with well pitched descents of 500 meters requiring a 10-15 minute hike back to the ski area. Niseko Moiwa looks to have some great sidecountry potential coming out of its gates on the western flank. Unfortunately we didn't make it there, but definitely next time!

We stayed at First Cabin in Kutchan which has a mix of capsules and double rooms. The double rooms were decent sized for Japan, and overall a good value with breakfast included. Some great food and authentic dining experiences can be found in Kutchan - if you're staying at the resort I definitely recommend this but not that many places require reservations and get booked up quickly. We had rented a car which really wouldn't have been necessary, but it was nice to have.

In terms of overall value, Niseko is indeed on the pricey side. Budget accommodation is really hard to come by unless you're willing to stay further away and drive. We came with our Ikon passes, adding to the crowds (all the Aussies couldn't figure out why there were suddenly so many North Americans) so not paying for tickets was nice. However even at 8000 yen for an all mountain pass, I think it's still a pretty good deal for the access you get, especially compared to North America, and I wouldn't hesitate to spend a couple days there. But at the same time, I wouldn't overlook cheaper options with much less competition for powder.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
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Loved Niseko United, came here for my first overseas snow trip (from Australia) in 2017 and was absolutely spoilt with almost neck deep untouched powder thanks to an unexpected dumping and a half empty resort because we were so early in the season. I’ve visited 3 times now, and would recommend to anyone the powder is incredible!
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Niseko has continued to change rapidly in some respects, whilst many other parts of Niseko are just same old same old, since we last visited 2 years ago. Niseko’s striking features continue to be the amazing snow, the fabulous sidecountry access, the abundant dining and nightlife options, and the family friendliness for English speaking kids.

Niseko seems to have got a little busier, in part because it’s accessible on the Ikon Pass. Relative to most other Japanese ski resorts, Niseko could be considered very busy. Of course it’s all relative because when we speak to many Euros and American, they think that Niseko is uncrowded!

Disappointingly, improvements to lift infrastructure have only been minor and there was no new lift-serviced terrain opened, and the main changes have been base buildings, and of course more hotels and condos.

Lift queues were a bit of a problem (but probably nothing like some of the queues seen in the US during the 19/20 season) but the problem was mostly due to complete mismanagement of the queues rather than lift capacity. Problems included a lack of single queues at many lifts, the number of E-gates didn’t match the numbers on each chair, and the staff didn’t corral people into the required numbers for the lift. The Hirafu gondola in particular was a complete schmozzle, and queues at Hanazono #1 lift were problematic. The new lifts planned for the Hanazono base area can’t come quickly enough. The road traffic was also a major issue, particularly around the Hirafu intersection and some minor changes are required to improve traffic efficiency.

The Niseko demographics continue to evolve and whilst there are still some ski bum types and budget oriented Australian travellers staying at overpriced hostels, the predominant visitors are rather affluent and many are beginners. There are still plenty of Americans (thanks to the Ikon Pass) and Europeans, but mostly Asians.

For us powder hounds, Niseko continues to have a major allure because of all its non-skiing related strengths, and to get fresh powder there are many options including cat skiing, backcountry touring, and visiting nearby ski areas.

We enjoyed 3 different faces of Niseko because we stayed in Kutchan at the First Cabin, in vibrant Hirafu at Full Note, and in quiet Moiwa at Kanronomori.
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Niseko was an all-round amazing resort.

We boarded for only 3.5 days (we had 5 day pass, but high winds closed most runs for the remainder).

The off-piste runs were some of the best i've ever ridden, with plenty of untouched snow.
The piste runs were sometimes quite choppy with the amount of riders but they were still rideable.

Nightlife is awesome & so is the food available from the mountain to Hirafu village.

Only con is maybe the lift lines were a bit long for this time of year.
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