skiing Archives - James Ramsden

How to get to Niseko Grand Hirafu ski resort

Niseko is by far the most popular ski resort in Hokkaido. Its world-famous powder is joined by Japanese culture to give an experience like no other.

Niseko is actually a combination of four ski areas on the same mountain. They are quite far apart at the bottom, but the ski areas meet at the top. They are:

Hanazono
Grand Hirafu
Niseko Village
Annupuri

The best-developed of these, and the most popular for international tourists, is Grand Hirafu. It is not close to many towns and can be quite difficult to get to. This guide will show you the different ways on how to get to Niseko Grand Hirafu.

View from Grand Hirafu. Image source

First, get to Hokkaido

Hokkaido is a large island at the north of Japan, about the size of Ireland or slightly smaller than South Korea. Its main city is Sapporo.

The easiest way to Hokkaido is by air to Shin-Chitose Airport (New Chitose Airport). Most people fly to Tokyo and get a connecting flight. Some international flights also fly directly to Sapporo, e.g. from Kuala Lumpur using AirAsia.

Once at the airport, if you want to go to Sapporo first, it’s very easy to go by train. Trains to Sapporo are every 15 minutes directly from the airport’s station, and cost 1070JPY each way.

Then, get from Shin Chitose Airport to Niseko

Most people transfer from the airport by bus. Niseko bus runs four services a day through the winter directly to Grand Hirafu. Check the timetable for times and stops. (Note: Niseko Hirahu = Grand Hirafu). The fare is 4400 yen per person. Reservation is recommended during peak season.

The bus will drop you off at the Welcome Center in Grand Hirafu, which is a large car park at the top of the village. Contact your hotel to see if they will pick you up from the Welcome Center. Otherwise, you could take the village’s B-Line bus around the village. Or you could walk – most hotels are walking distance away.

…Or get from Sapporo to Niseko

There are two buses a day from Sapporo to Niseko, and two coming back. Check the Niseko Bus page for times and stops.

As above, the bus will drop you off at the Welcome Center.

Can you get to Niseko by train?

There are no useful train services all the way to Niseko. Don’t get fooled by the fact that there is a train station called ‘Niseko’ nearby. This serves the village of Niseko (not the same as Niseko Village) which is actually quite far from the ski resorts.

It is better to take the train to Kutchan, the town nearest to the ski resorts. Then, from Kutchan, you have several options:

Take a taxi (about 7km)
See if your hotel will pick you up from the station
Take the Niseko United shuttle bus D-line

The shuttle bus is the obvious choice if you are on a budget, but check the link above first. The buses only run in the evening and during peak season, primarily so that people staying in the resort can enjoy Kutchan’s restaurants.

To go by train, the route is:

Airport — Sapporo — Otaru — Kutchan.

You sometimes have to change at Sapporo, and you definitely will have to change at Otaru. The fare is currently 2630 yen. Check your route with Hyperdia.

If you are wanting reservations, it is generally not possible to reserve trains outside of Japan. In any case, The majority of services on these routes are unreserved anyway – just buy a ticket and jump on.

What about the ski train?

You may have heard of the Niseko Ski Train. This is a direct, express service from Sapporo to the village of Niseko, stopping at Kutchan on the way. It avoids needing to change at Otaru. The train runs a few times a day during the winter season.

The best way to get times is probably just to check your route on Hyperdia. If the ski train is running when you want to travel, Hyperdia will show it as a possible route.

Niseko Ski Express. Image source

Can you take a day trip to Niseko?

Many ski resorts in Hokkaido are a short train or bus ride from Sapporo – the best base for a day-trip style ski holiday. This is a great way to ski in Hokkaido on a budget, since you can stay in cheap Sapporo accommodation, and use a tourist rail pass to get around.

Niseko is just a little too far from Sapporo to visit just for the day to get a good day of skiing. However, if you don’t mind having a slightly shorter day, it can be done, if for a few hours:

Take the 07:55 bus from Sapporo bus station.
Arrive at 11:01 at the Grand Hirafu Welcome Center
Go ski!
Catch the 17:09 from the Welcome Center back to Sapporo

This gives you about 6 hours in Grand Hirafu – remember to factor in travel time to/from the Welcome Center.

One disadvantage of not staying the night is that you don’t have a hotel who might provide help with transport. On the plus, accommodation in Niseko is expensive…

Header image source courtesy of Mark Kenworthy under Creative Commons licence

How to get to Kiroro ski resort

Kiroro Ski Resort is one of the best ski resorts in Hokkaido, and it’s easy to see why. Great runs, English-friendly, brilliant snow, and yet it manages to avoid the crowds of the nearby, more popular Niseko.

The resort also has the advantage of being close to Sapporo, making it easy to get to. This guide will give you some of the best ways on how to get to Kiroro ski resort.

Directly from the airport

Buses run directly from the airport from December to March, with 6 buses a day in each direction.

Check this page for times, and to book online.

If you want to go by train as much as possible, or there isn’t a suitable bus, then take the train from the airport to Sapporo. Trains are every 15 minutes and cost 1070JPY. Then, to get from Sapporo to Kiroro, read below.

By Hokkaido Access Network bus from Sapporo

Buses run from Sapporo bus station to Kiroro, stopping at various hotels along the way. The buses are well-timed for day trips – they leave Sapporo in the morning, and drive back in the evening. Buses run daily through winter. Check this page for exact times and to book online.

The buses are quite expensive, at 3500JPY each way. I haven’t taken this bus yet so I don’t know what it’s like – if you have, please leave your comments below.

By Chuo Bus from Sapporo or Otaru bus stations

Chuo bus, the main bus company in the Sapporo region, is my preferred way to get to Kiroro. The buses are comfortable, and there was plenty of space when I took it. The buses are actually full-size coaches, and there’s plenty of space for ski equipment.

The buses run both from Sapporo bus station and Otaru bus station, next to their respective train stations. They leave at 08:10 from both bus stations. If you have a choice between the two, I’d recommend making your way to Otaru, as it’s the closer of the two to Kiroro.

It’s possible to just turn up at the bus station and buy a ticket on the day. However, to avoid disappointment, I recommend booking online here. (There’s an English button in the top right.)

However, they have one big disadvantage – the buses only run on holidays and weekends. They run daily over the New Year Period, and Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Check the above link for dates. If the Chuo bus is running, I recommend you take this service. If not, you can use the (much more expensive) Hokkaido Access Network from Sapporo otherwise.

From Otaru, a ticket costs 930JPY each way, and 1540JPY from Sapporo. Buy a ticket at vending machines at the bus station, or you can use your Kitaca card.

Reservation is supposedly required, though I’ve used the buses without a reservation myself. Call Kiroro Resort General Information on 0135-34-7111 by 6pm the day before to make a reservation.

By Kiroro resort bus from Otaru Chikko station

Unfortunately, as of the 2016-17 season, the free bus from Otaru Chikko station no longer appears to be running 🙁

If the Chuo bus isn’t running when you need it, you could take the resort-run free bus. This bus runs daily from the taxi rank outside Otaru-Chikko station, including weekdays. The bus leaves Otaru-Chikko at 08:30, 10:00, 13:00, 15:05 and 18:25, and the return bus leaves Kiroro at 12:10, 14:15 and 17:30. The bus is free of charge both ways.

However, I only recommend the resort bus on days the Chuo bus isn’t running. Why?

The bus is first-come first-served, with no reservation system. The service is popular and there is a realistic chance that you will be left behind.

The bus is small and quite uncomfortable. The seats are tiny, with no legroom.

If you do decide to take the resort bus, do arrive at least 15 minutes early and form a queue at the taxi rank. Similarly, on your return, arrive early at the resort hotel (where the bus will drop you off and pick you up from) to be sure of getting a seat.

For more information on times, fares and pickup points, see the company’s website.

By car

Car rental in Japan is not expensive if you book in advance. Driving is quite a feasible way of getting around, and there is plenty of parking at ski resorts.

The main problem is the amount of snow and ice on the road. The Japanese do a good job of clearing their roads, especially in the cities, but the volume of snow that falls means that dangerous road conditions are inevitable, especially outside of the cities on the mountain roads. If you are not used to driving on snow and ice, I wouldn’t make this a time to start.

Another thing to consider is making sure you hire a car that is big enough for your ski equipment! Japanese Kei-cars (the boxy little cars you see everywhere with the yellow reg plates) may be tempting because they’re the cheapest (sometimes less than 4000JPY/day), but make sure you can get everything in it, occupants included, before you drive away.

To book your car, I use ToCoo! to organise car hire. Prices are as good as you’ll find anywhere, and the whole website is in English.

By taxi

Taxi obviously isn’t the cheapest option, but it’s feasible if you have no other way.

The nearest town to Kiroro is Otaru, a 28km drive away. Taxis cost around 600JPY per 1.5km, so expect a charge of around 10000JPY if by the meter. You’ll find taxis waiting outside Otaru station.

Planning a weekend ski trip to Les 3 Vallees, France

Last winter, a friend and I were looking to go skiing for the weekend. The challenge was to do it without having to take any time off work, to maximise time on the slopes, and not for stupid money.

This post is about how we planned for that weekend, how it went, and what I would do differently on my next weekend ski trip in Europe.

Deciding where to go and how to get there

We are both based near London, so that was the obvious point from which to plan. The challenge with ski resorts is that they, by their very nature, difficult to access, and we didn’t want to spend most of the weekend travelling to and from the resort rather than being at the resort itself.

Most ski resorts tend to let accommodation on a weekly Saturday-to-Saturday basis. This obviously was not going to be suitable, so if we were going to use a hotel then likely it would have to be a hotel in a nearby town rather than at the resort itself.

But this also means that the quietest day on the slopes is Saturday. So this would be a good day to target for the actual skiing. It would be nice to already be there by Saturday morning, which would mean travelling down Friday night.

This ruled out flying from the UK. Short haul flights generally don’t fly in the late evening, so we wouldn’t be able to fly Friday night. The first flights on Saturday morning still wouldn’t be able to get us on the slopes before lunchtime on Saturday.

How about driving? Technically possible, but we would have been looking at an overnight drive, finishing with us climbing up the snowy mountain to the resort without having slept. Probably not ideal.

This would not have been the first time I have been skiing in Europe. In February 2014, I went skiing for the first time in Val Thorens, a resort of the 3 Vallees in the French Alps. We took the overnight train from London to Moutiers each way for the week-long trip. A quick look on the Eurostar website showed that are two trains per week in each direction throughout the ski season. A crazy idea – could we take the overnight train for a day of skiing from London?

Amazingly, it is possible! There is an outbound train from London on Friday night, travelling direct to the French Alps, and a return train on Saturday night in the opposite direction. It would only allow one day on the slopes, but it would be a full day, and unlike driving or a night on an airport floor, there was opportunity for a good few hours’ kip on the train.

So, it looked like we were going to the 3 Vallees. Since we were only going for one day, it seemed like a good idea to return to Val Thorens. I enjoyed the slopes here last time, and there was still plenty I wanted to do there. It would mean we could head straight to my favourite runs without having to spend time getting acquainted with a new resort.

Taking the Ski Train to Les 3 Vallees

We bought the train tickets for the Eurostar well in advance, with a return costing around £150 per person. We went standard class outbound, and due to a good price, we got the standard premier class return.

In hindsight, I would really recommend getting the standard premier in each direction! The journey is around 10 hours, and it’s best if you try and get as close as possible to a full night’s sleep. Here are the two classes:

This is standard class:

Image: Stephen H

And this is standard premier:

Image: David McKelvey under Creative Commons

The difference is the extra space. Standard class may be fine if you are doing the 2 hour journey from London to Paris, but for getting a decent rest overnight, the extra space is definitely worth a little extra money!

The outbound train has a great party atmosphere. Bring food and drink with you and enjoy the ride!

Arriving at the French Alps – things start to go wrong

The train makes multiple stops at different stations within the French Alps. We planned to alight at Moutiers, the nearest station to Val Thorens, and then to take a public bus between Moutiers bus station (which is connected to the train station) and the resort.

Arriving at Moutiers, to our confusion, the buses to Val Thorens don’t seem to be running. Through a combination of asking other confused tourists, and my own broken French, I learnt that the road to Val Thorens (there is only one!) had been closed due to a large boulder blocking it. There was literally no way to get to Val Thorens that day.

Adamant that we had not come half way across Europe to see a train station, we tried to see where else we could go from Moutiers. There are many resorts in the area, but they all seem to be connected by a highly fragile road network with no redundancy. The only available option was the resort of Courcheval, which as it turns out wasn’t a terrible compromise.

Plan B: Courcheval

Courcheval is a little more up-market than Val Thorens. VT has a big student-y crowd, while Courcheval seems to attract couples and very middle-class families, as evident from the architecture and the extremely expensive-looking jewellery shops. It is also exceptionally beautiful.

Image: Clifton Beard under Creative Commons

We had pre-paid for pretty much everything before we left the UK – all for Val Thorens. We had to buy new ski passes and pay for ski rental again. We explained the situation at the ticket counter, but they said we wouldn’t be able to transfer our ski passes as we had bought it from a different company. We would have to buy again and try and get a refund later on. This is certainly some useful advice – there are no real benefits for buying ski passes in advance, save from a couple of minutes in the ticket queue! If you’re thinking of buying in advance, I would say not to bother. Similarly for ski hire, there are so many rental shops that, unless you have an unusual shoe size, you should have no problem finding equipment by turning up on the day.

At long last, by mid-morning, we were all kitted out and ready to go skiing! Courcheval is certainly more attractive than Val Thorens, which is very concretey and faux-chalet, with few trees. The mountains are stunningly high – certainly much more dramatic than the smaller mountains of northern Japan.

Image: James Ramsden

Courcheval has a good mix of beginner, intermediate and advanced slopes. Skiing with my beginner counterpart, we spent some time on the nursery slope before moving onto a green run. The resort thankfully wasn’t too busy, though I suspect it would get a bit crazy in peak season when it’s not Saturday. Like all major European ski resorts, there are mountain restaurants aplenty, which provided us with a tasty but ridiculously over-priced pizza for lunch.

Image: James Mellor under Creative Commons

Heading back

After lunch, we went to the tourist information to double-check that we could get back to Moutiers this evening, being well aware of the problematic roads. Turns out they had some not so good news – they were imminently closing the road to Courcheval! We had missed the last bus, and in a panic we had to organise a taxi to come for us.

So, mid-afternoon and with some 6 hours to kill, we were back in Moutiers, waiting for the train to take us back to the UK.

Would I do it again?

We did have a lot of bad luck on this trip. I’m sure we could do it another 10 times and be fine. But the sensitivity of the road network to problems means that I would probably head to a slightly more robust area.

Next time, I may be tempted to look at the area around Bourg St-Maurice. This is the terminus of the ski train, and the ski resorts round these parts are much closer to the train station.

I would be happy to take the train again, though I would not go in standard class. Try and book your tickets far in advance for the best prices.

I don’t know why I wrote this article in summer though. It’s just made me want to skiing right now…

Planning a ski trip to Japan: A ski map of Hokkaido

As part of my research into my first ski trip in Japan, I have been researching the different places to go.

I am a relative beginner with little over a week of experience, but I’m wanting somewhere with the best snow, a good mix of slopes, and away from the crowds. In Hokkaido, we’re spoilt for choice and it can be quite bewildering to know where to go, where to stay and how to get around.

I put together the map of Hokkaido ski resorts below as an evolving work to help understand the different regions in Hokkaido for skiing. I haven’t actually been to any of the places below yet, but it is quite a useful tool for putting together my plans. I have also saved piste maps into each of the resorts – zoom in and click a ski icon to take a look.

Full screen version: click here.

It seems that many of the most exciting and promising resorts can be accessed within a couple of hours of Sapporo by train, even the distant Tomamu in the east. With a JR pass, it’s very easy to get about by train, and it will likely be cheaper to stay in Sapporo and do day trips to lots of different resorts. Furano is the only significant exception that’s a little too far – maybe a couple of days at a hotel there?

The PowderHounds website (and their own ski map) was an excellent resource in my map and my own planning. I recommend you take a look, especially at their list of top resorts.

Anything I’ve missed out? Any other amazing places you can recommend?