Sapporo Bankei

Sapporo Bankei Ski Resort is close to the city of Sapporo, so it’s ideal if you want a quick access ski resort when staying in Sapporo. Often called “ban.K”, the ski area is popular with the locals for night skiing after work and it’s also a trendy spot for snowboarders who are not allowed to ride at nearby Moiwayama Ski Resort. 

Pros and Cons of ban.K

Pros 

• It’s close to Sapporo and there are various public transport options to get there.
• The ski area is reasonable for confident beginners to low-end intermediates.
• Bankei has a half pipe, although it’s not always established or well shaped.
• Ban.K is foreigner friendly and has some English speaking staff, and it also provides a nice Japanese skijo experience.

Cons

• On weekdays there are often lots and lots of school kids. Sometimes the teachers/instructors may give you priority access to the lifts and at other times you’ll be queueing for a while. Weekends are also often crowded, especially if all the lifts are not running which is commonplace.
• Sapporo Bankei is not particularly great for powder hounds.

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective

• Lift passes are cheap relative to places like Rusutsu, but somewhat costly for a small Hokkaido ski resort. Thankfully there are various short duration passes to save some yen.

Bankei Ski and Snowboard Terrain

Sapporo Bankei has 17 courses and it is a short and wide ski area. It has 3 base areas (east, central and west) and the runs are mostly very short, whilst the centre area has one longer run that has about 283 metres of vertical.

Like many Japan ski areas, the lift infrastructure is not modern. It has 1 triple chair lift and 4 double chairs, and there is also a single chair that rarely operates. Sometimes the other chair lifts don’t run either, for reasons that may not seem that obvious.

There is also a magic carpet for kids snow play or first turns, but otherwise ban.K is not very good for novice skiers and snowboarders. Some of the courses commence with a steep pitch and are quite narrow and congested with school children. Early beginners are probably better placed at the Sapporo Teine Ski Resort.

Most of the courses are ideal for confident beginners to mid level intermediates. There are 3 short advanced runs that are reasonably mellow, and one of them is a FIS moguls course. The ban.K half pipe is also used for competitions. If you’ve got good technical skills, you can have a go at the tight trees if the snow is good.

Bankei Snow

Sapporo Bankei is a low elevation ski area (200 to 483 metres), so it doesn’t have the same snow quality and quantity as the high profile Hokkaido ski resorts. On average the Bankei snow base sits at about 1.2 metres in the middle of winter. A plus for the snow quality is the north facing aspect, whilst in addition to the elevation, a detractor for the on-piste snow quality can be the high traffic.

Where is ban.K?

Sapporo Bankei Ski Resort is in Chuo Ward of Sapporo in Hokkaido, only 9km southwest of the Sapporo train station.

If you don’t have a car, the ski resort offers packages that include taxi transfers. Or for inexpensive transport there are regular buses to Bankei Ski Resort from the Maruyama Koen Subway Station, Hassamu-Minami Subway Station, and Makomanai Subway Station.

The car parking is spread across the base areas and those close to the Center Lodge tend to fill up quickly on weekends.

See the Sapporo overview regarding other ski resorts near Sapporo.

Accommodation

There is no Bankei accommodation at the base but there are plenty of options for hotels in Sapporo.

Sapporo Accommodation Listings

Facilities

The amenities are housed in old buildings spread across the bottom of the ski area: East House; Center Lodge; West House: and Bankeien. Your eating needs are well covered, and you can pre-book private snowsports lessons in English. If you’ve arrived in Hokkaido empty handed, you can rent ski and snowboard equipment and clothing, with the exception of gloves and large western sizes.

A kids’ play area, Wakuwaki Snowland, is located at the base, and for a fee the kids can go sledding or tubing.