Japan's Ski Resorts & Snow Country

About this book

Japan is one of the snowiest inhabited countries on earth, with more than four hundred ski areas — from the powder fields the world calls Japow to single-lift slopes where a farming village teaches its own children. Yet English writing about skiing in Japan stops at the famous names. This book goes further: 200 entries in eight parts read the Japanese ski area as a whole institution. It begins with the gelande itself — lift passes and IC cards, the rental bench, ski schools in two languages, grooming machines on the night shift, mountain restaurants, base lodges, patrols and the onsen at the foot of the slope. It then reads the great regions one by one: Hokkaidō's powder north from Niseko to the small fields of Pippu and Nayoro; Tōhoku's snow monsters, volcano fields and deep valleys; the yukiguni heartland of Niigata and Gunma, where the shinkansen arrives inside the slope at GALA Yuzawa; Nagano's Olympic Alps from Hakuba to Shiga Kōgen and the village that skis, Nozawa Onsen; and the small, inventive fields of the west, down to Shikoku and Kyūshū. A full part follows the ski area through its year — the first artificial ribbon of November, the powder months, spring corn snow and the last lifts of Golden Week — and a final part is the practical handbook: the rules of the slope, avalanche and whiteout in honest general terms, rescue and insurance, boots that fit, children and grandparents on snow, white roads, manners, language and a glossary of the gelande. Seasons, charges and lift operations change, and this book never freezes them into promises: every entry closes by pointing to the official source, so your day on the snow is confirmed before it is trusted. For the skier planning a first Japanese winter, the powder hunter choosing between regions, and anyone travelling with non-skiers in tow.