Asari Ski Resort, Asarigawa Onsen

Asari Ski Resort at Asarigawa Onsen is a nice little ski area where you can taste some powder chowder without being disturbed by other powder hounds.

You could hit up Asari as a day trip from Sapporo or Otaru, or even Niseko if you had your own wheels. Asari is a low elevation ski resort, so it can be ideal to visit when the wind is too ferocious at nearby Kiroro, Sapporo Teine or Sapporo Kokusai.

Pros and Cons of Asari Ski Resort

Pros 

• Asari is uncrowded, there are no lift lines, and you’re highly unlikely to find anyone else out in the off-piste zones. You can have all the powder to yourself!
• The drawcard for powder hounds is the off-piste and backcountry skiing which is reasonable.
• The powder doesn’t come at a premium as lift tickets are very affordable.
• On fine days the views across Ishikari Bay are spectacular.
• Asari is mostly a locals’ ski area with a nice cultural vibe.

Cons

• It’s a small ski area that won’t keep you entertained for too long.

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective

• Asari Ski Resort is a good choice if lifts are closed at nearby ski resorts due to high winds, yet with snow old lifts it can get cold when the winds are howling.

Asari Ski and Snowboard Terrain

Asari is a small ski resort that service 9 courses (piste trails) with stats of 30% beginner, 40% intermediate, and 30% advanced. Asari also has a small terrain park with a few jumps. The terrain is all below the tree line and the top elevation is at only 680 metres. Asari has a vertical drop of 540 metres.

Asari Ski Resort has 4 lifts sans safety bar: 3 slow doubles; a triple; and also a magic carpet. The chairs are named by colour to correspond with courses of the same colour, but be mindful that the green courses are not for beginners.

Asari is particularly popular with beginners and school kids who flock around the base area, and the other groomed runs are well suited to intermediates. There is very little on-piste terrain for advanced riders despite the 30% statistic. The Orange course has short pitches of up to 36 degrees gradient, and a few moguls develop on the sides of the groomers, but that’s about it for challenging piste terrain.

All the fun for advanced skiers and snowboarders is in the off-piste and side-country areas where powder hounds can revel in amongst the spindly trees. These zones are practically deserted, so you’ll find fresh powder lines galore!

The off piste areas are mostly fairly mellow, although there are some short steep sections as well as small cliff bands to keep things interesting. And so long as you keep out of the water (!) there are also some fun dam walls to ski around.

Outside the resort boundaries, Asari offers delightful side-country terrain that feeds back into the ski area. Skiers’ left offers some tight trees of reasonable gradient, whilst out to the right of the ski resort there are also lots of sweet lines. Don’t venture too far though, as the terrain becomes flatter the further you traverse to the right.

Asari sits below the road up to Kiroro Ski Resort, so the other backcountry option is to get a mate to drop you off so you can ski down to the Asari ski resort.

Asari Snow

Like the rest of Hokkaido, Asari gets plenty of snowfall. As the skiing is at relatively low altitude, the quality of the powder may not be well maintained relative to other Hokkaido ski resorts, although it has a mostly northeast aspect and there is usually plenty of virgin snow on offer.

Where is Asari Ski Resort?

Asari is located in a hot spring area, Asarigawa Onsen, only 9km southeast of the small city of Otaru, and 35km northwest of Sapporo in Hokkaido (the north island of Japan).

Asarigawa Onsen Accommodation

The little hot spring village of Asarigawa Onsen has a few hotels with onsen and there are a few pensions. It’s not a cute onsen village and a couple of the high rise hotel buildings are rather unsightly.

Winkel Village is about 5 minutes walk from the ski area and has cottages for up to 6 to 11 adults, as well as apartments for 4 to 5 adults with an open air bath.

Otaru Asari Classe Hotel is a 4 star hotel that’s about 10 minutes walk from the ski area.

Asarigawa Onsen Accommodation Listings

Or you could stay in one of the many Otaru hotels and Otaru makes a great base to visit various ski area. Alternatively you could commute from a Sapporo hotel.

Asari Ski Resort Facilities

The main ski resort facilities are located at the base in a large glass fronted two-storey building. Downstairs is a café selling snacks such as those scrummy pork buns, or you can BYO picnic and brown bag it. Upstairs is the main restaurant where you can buy the usual lunch fare.

Other services and facilities include equipment tuning and repairs, a “pro” shop, and ski school for those proficient in the Japanese language. Alternatively the Winkel snowsports school has English speaking instructors for private lessons, and you can even get door-to-door transport included.

The ski resort offers affordable ski and snowboard rentals, and they also rent out clothing such as jackets and pants but they no long rent gloves (or groves as the Japanese like to call them!).

Some of the hotels provide access for day visitors to their indoor hot springs and rotenburo (outdoor onsen).