According to the Togakushi website “Togakushi Ski Resort is a place where you can wash your heart with dignified air in front of the majestic scenery”. The views are rather nice, but something might have got lost in translation, because whilst Togakushi was pretty good, I’m not sure my heart was washed!

We hadn’t visited Togakushi for 9 years and not too much had changed. One exception was that the double chair near the small base doesn’t operate on weekdays anymore, which equates to having to work a little harder to get out of the sidecountry. What hasn’t changed much is the approach to off-piste skiing. Whilst lots of other Honshu ski resorts have grown tired of policing tree skiing, it sounds as though the culture still exists at Togakushi despite the off-piste being very low risk. The terrain lends itself well to easy discretion and we’re experienced powder ninjas so didn’t experience any issues, but we heard reports of a local who wears an orange arm band (but with no official capacity) who dobs on people having fun in the powder! What we don’t know is whether the staff act on his dobbing. The upside was that it was reasonably easy to find fresh powder lines all day amongst the trees. Many of them were just short pitches, but very enjoyable.

After a day of being powder ninjas, we went for an après ski excursion to one of the shrines of Togakushi. The short hike along the avenue of old cedar trees was rather lovely.

See the Togakushi overview page for our thoughts on the pros and cons and you can see the Honshu ski resorts ratings to see how we rank Togakushi against other ski areas.
See our video here

Togakushi was a fun little resort to spend a day riding at, would recommend.
Decent selection of groomers to ride, hadn't snowed recently enough for powder when I was there.
See our video here

Skied here for 2 days midweek in late February. Didn’t see another Westerner, and never seen a resort so uncrowded generally. Nice long runs, beautiful scenery, and at the grand old age of 50, you qualify as a Senior.
Certainly not difficult to get to now, either. Buses run hourly all the way to the ski resort from Nagano Station (bus stop 7 - opposite side of the station from ‘the usual spot ‘).
Lodge Pico a friendly little place to stay. And if you want a break from skiing, you can hire a guide to take you snowshoeing through the magical Narnia-like forest to the Upper Shrine.
See our video here

spent a midweek day here and it was pretty much deserted apart from the Japanese ski schools. not a huge resort but with the right conditions would be awesome. decent lifts and zero queues no fresh snow when I was there but still found fresh tracks in the trees. I must say that the ski patrol dont not allow any off piste skiing and are quite strict about it I saw a couple people pulled and warned but if you are discrete there is load of decent stuff to the sides. the pistes were well groomed and fast. decent pitched stuff to the right but short and would be awesome with a foot of fresh. you need a car or be part of a tour to get to togakushi so that's why its quiet I presume.
See our video here

We visited Togakushi on a weekday as part of a Myoko Powder Package that included transport and morning guiding. It felt like no one else was there, and we thanked the guides for bringing us to our own private secluded ski resort!

It was a beautiful powder day at Togakushi and there were fresh lines aplenty on the piste and in the trees. When we returned to Myoko that evening, other guests were very jealous because the snow at the Myoko Kogen ski areas (at lower elevation) was very wet.

For a ski resort that seemed low-key, the lift infrastructure was surprisingly OK. One of the quad chairs was running at a good pace and there was also a detachable pair lift. The pair lift that serviced the black runs was fixed grip, but that wasn’t too slow either.

See the overview page for more on our thoughts on the pros and cons of Togakushi.
See our video here