Hakuba Valley

The Ski Area

Hakuba Valley is one of Japan’s great ski destinations and one of the easiest to reach. It is located just 250km west of Tokyo and is accessible in less than four hours from the airport by bullet train. The area hosted many of the events at the Nagano Winter Olympics including the alpine skiing downhill, super giant slalom and combined slalom events as well as the ski jumping, cross-country and Nordic combined competitions. More recently the exciting Freeride World Tour has taken place in Hakuba.

It’s a beautiful and vibrant destination, with a reputation for incredible, light powder snowfall and a huge choice of every type of skiing imaginable at multiple ski areas, all on a single lift pass, which also includes the shuttle link between them.

The Hakuba Valley is home to 10 ski resorts, each wonderful in its own way. Between them they offer 120 ski runs and 90 gondola/chair lifts, most of them comfortable chairlifts. The different resorts have varying appeals – some are great for families, others for experts, some have particularly fabulous views, others have an intimate atmosphere with very gentle slopes and excellent ski schools, so are brilliant for beginners.

The list goes on and you can choose which is best for you and mix and match during your stay.

Off the slopes, there’s a huge range of accommodation choices, as well as many cafes, bars and restaurants offering both traditional Japanese and ‘western’ experiences.  Those who love Japan’s famous hot spring onsen culture will be delighted by the huge choice of bathing areas. Those who haven’t tried the onsen experience yet will quickly become addicted!

You can buy the multi-day lift pass for the whole valley, called Hakuba Valley Pass (which also includes free use of a shuttle bus service between resorts and base villages.  For more information on how to get there, see below.  It doesn’t really matter where you base yourself as it’s easy to travel around as you need.