Central Hokkaido Skiing
So you’ve probably heard by now how fabulous the snowboarding and skiing in Hokkaido is, and how amazing the Hokkaido snow is? And undoubtedly you’ve heard of
Niseko in Hokkaido?! Sure, the snow at Niseko and other ski resorts near the coast is superb and absolutely abundant, but in Central Hokkaido the quality of the snow is generally even more superb and offers the
best snow in Japan.
There are a few destination ski resorts in Central Hokkaido where you could hang out for a week such as
Furano,
Tomamu and
Sahoro, but particularly for powder hounds, you’ll definitely want to sample several ski areas.
And the Central Hokkaido backcountry skiing and splitboarding is out of this world when it comes to chasing the famed Hokkaido powder.
If you asked us where our best days of powder skiing in the world have been, the answer is Central Hokkaido. We probably don’t have a specific favourite ski resort or backcountry area, as it’s really the combination of multiple spots in the region that makes it fabulous.
Pros & Cons of Central Hokkaido
Pros
- The quality of the Central Hokkaido snow is generally off the powdomoter scale!
- There is a good selection of different ski resorts within easy driving distance of each other.
- Much of Central Hokkaido isn’t westernised and you can choose from different cultural experiences including onsen villages, modern kitsch resorts, old school ski resorts, city life and rural Japan.
- Central Hokkaido skiing and accommodation is typically much cheaper than what you’ll find at Niseko, Rusutsu and Kiroro.
- The region is quickly becoming more popular, but you’ll still find that Central Hokkaido skiing is rather uncrowded and freshies are reasonably easy to come by.
Con
- Like many other Japanese ski resorts, some of the Central Hokkaido ski resorts will only hold the attention of experienced riders for a couple of days. You’ll probably want to do a road trip and head to multiple ski areas to keep the stoke high.
Central Hokkaido Snow
A few of the Southwest Hokkaido ski resorts near the coast get such massive snowfalls, that they are up there as some of the highest for ski resorts in the world. Examples include
Kiroro,
Niseko and
Sapporo Kokusai. By the time the storms make it further inland to Central Hokkaido, some of the moisture has already dropped onto the coastal mountains, so the Central Hokkaido ski resorts don’t tend to get as much snowfall but the quality is superior.
Part of this is guess work because measuring snow volumes is probably more of a westernised concept, and many of the ski areas don’t cite a snowfall statistic. Nevertheless the estimates would suggest that the volumes of Central Hokkaido snow are nothing to be sniffed at, and would still make many of the North American ski resorts very jealous.
And the high elevation areas in the Daisetsuzan National Park such as
Asahidake,
Kurodake and
Tokachidake receive big dumps of snow. The translation of Daisetsuzan means “mountains of big snow” or “big snowy mountains”. Either way it’s indicative that there’s plenty of the highly renowned Hokkaido snow.
I recall one day skiing neck deep powder at
Furano (yes neck deep – not exaggerating!), over the shoulder Hokkaido powder in the backcountry, and nipple deep at Kamui, and plenty of other deep days, so I don’t think you need to worry about there being enough snow!
Chasing the Central Hokkaido Powder
So you’ve probably got the message by now that if you want to chase the snow storms (or avoid them if it results in a ropeway being closed) and score plenty of terrain variety, you don’t want to go to just one ski resort.
You’ll find information on Powderhounds.com for each ski resort regarding how to get to nearby ski areas, but in essence it’s very clunky to get between the Central Hokkaido areas unless you have a
rental car and self-drive, or a guide who will drive you around.
Unless you’re very experienced at route finding and negotiating the backcountry, we’d highly recommend getting a guide. Day guiding is available out of
Furano (and Asahidake and Asahikawa to a lesser degree) or you can go on a
multi-day tour that includes guiding, accommodation, and all transport. Guiding can cover the off-piste zones, lift accessed sidecountry, and/or the backcountry via skinning or snowshoeing.
Where are the Central Hokkaido Ski Resorts?
The central part of Hokkaido is to the northeast of Sapporo. There are multiple places you could base yourself, but two common choices are Furano (the belly button of Hokkaido) and the city of
Asahikawa. Furano provides easy access to both the southern and northern ski areas in the region, whilst Asahikawa is really only ideal for the northern ski areas.
Road distances to ski resorts from
Furano are as following.
To the south:
To the north:
Road distances to ski areas from
Asahikawa are as following.
There are various other ski areas near Asahikawa although many of these would be considered to be in northern Hokkaido rather than Central Hokkaido. See the
Asahikawa overview for road distances to ski areas north of the city.