We chose to start our day at Annupuri for its easy parking and short gondola lines. The top lift had been closed all week due to maintenance issues, which seems to be a common thing in Japan considering the many ancient lifts. The lift had been fixed, but then true to form, the relic of an old lift didn’t open because there was a light breeze.

The upside was that the masses weren’t coming over from the other Niseko ski areas, so we managed to get some fresh lines in the sidecountry of Annupuri.

The Annupuri Village has some recently built condos and houses, but otherwise nothing much has changed and it remains a lovely village. We had dinner at Karabina, which was delightfully old-school Niseko, and another noteworthy experience was a soak in the outdoor onsen at Niseko Annupuri Yugokorotei which was sublime.
See our video here

Skied for 3 days, fresh powder every day and final day was bluebird with powder from snowfall in the night. Off piste on the second day was beautiful, hampered slightly by visibility being blizzard like conditions. Lifts are very slow and old, but expected in the smaller resort.
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Annupuri is the more mellow family oriented side of Niseko from what I could tell. For the powderhounds reading this review, i'm disappointed to say that none of the sidecountry gates at Annupuri were opened for the season yet due to the historically bad winter they were having. (although we got dumped on every day we were there) The very top of Annupuri is very similar to the tops of the other Niseko resorts with these naked bushes perfectly spaced apart and excellent powder all between them. As you descended lower the groomers were fun, fast and very wide. If your a tree-rider like myself there were some side sections you could get into that weren't groomed and had some fun trees to maneuver around. We were lucky in that we didn't wait in line at any point at Annupuri although I had read that it tends to get pretty full. Ultimately I really wanted to go into Gate 2 and access the Ohsawa and Back Bowls sections as I had researched them a lot leading into this trip but I guess I'll have to see if they're open next time I'm on that side of the world. The lift system was a little old, no real complaints, just a little older than what we were used to at Hirafu. We didn't explore the base village or the nightlife of Annupuri at all but from what i've read its quieter and more family friendly than Niseko which was kind of packed with loud, drunk, Australians. No offense Aussies.
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We really enjoyed staying in the Annupuri Village. It was a lovely peaceful alternative to the bustling Hirafu, and whilst An’nupuri was adequately English language friendly, it still felt like a Japanese ski resort village. The village is spread out somewhat, so it required a little bit of walking to explore the restaurants, but this was part of the charm of Annupuri.

We stayed at Lodge 401, which is a boutique B&B, only 1-2 minutes walk to the Annupuri gondola. It was a bit of a gem and you can check out our Lodge 401 review.

As we didn’t purchase a lift ticket for just the Annupuri Ski Resort but rather a Niseko United pass, our general reviews of Niseko sum up our thoughts on the skiing and snowboarding.

Whilst in the area we also sampled some Niseko cat skiing companies, which was a great way to score powder without any crowds.
See our video here