After my first day’s skiing in Japan, I looked around my room in puzzlement.
How do you dry wet gloves when there are no radiators because the heating is
centralised? The answer was staring me in the face. I placed them carefully
on the heated lavatory seat and trotted downstairs to the bar, where the
self-tilting beer dispenser delivered the perfect pint — lots of body, nice
head.
These are just some of the quaint additions to a skiing holiday in Japan,
which also includes plastic shields that automatically descend on the
chairlifts, sealing you into a cocoon, and vending machines on the slopes
that sell hot as well as cold cans.
Although Japan has 500 ski areas, it attracts few UK skiers, partly because of
the distance — a gruelling 24-hour trip to some resorts — and partly because
many of those “resorts” are little more than a chairlift and a piste. But
this year Inghams is featuring the resorts of Rusutsu and Niseko on
Hokkaido, the most northerly of Japan’s main islands, to its brochure. The
resorts are the real deal, with beginner and intermediate slopes as well as
more advanced terrain, and the price is good, too, with half-board packages
from just under £1,000.
Optimum snow conditions are all but guaranteed — important when you think
about the slow start to this season in Europe. Although there are no
blue-sky days in January and February, a possible deterrent for British
piste skiers who will find more user-friendly conditions in the Alps, the
silver lining is a nightly storm, with prevailing Siberian winds picking up
moisture over the Sea of Japan and dumping it as snow on Hokkaido’s
mountains.
On our first morning, Clayton Cannahan, our Canadian guide to Rusutsu, made
half a dozen “check ’em out” turns on the piste before launching his
snowboard like an arrow off piste into the silver-birch forest. Strictly
forbidden, of course. The Japanese love their regulations and these include
staying in bounds. Then again, in Hokkaido’s gold-rush climate, ambiguity
and foreign currency rule over large signs forbidding off-piste skiing.
The Japanese have been quick to appreciate the magic that lies beyond their
ropes so we were not alone in the trees, but there was plenty for everyone.
On a day of self-indulgence, we plundered line after line of powder that
surged over our knees and sprayed into our faces, light as air. Even though
we had slept for only four hours, we couldn’t call it quits before the lifts
closed.
Should the next step be a slump over a reviving cup of saké in the piano bar
or a massage in the bedroom? Or both? Massage is on offer wherever and
almost whenever, fully dressed at the airport or on your hotel bed at 1am.
Ten years ago, a holiday in Hokkaido would have been a tough cultural call,
but Rusutsu and Niseko have been partially colonised by Australians and
Canadians. Like Clayton, who owns the Black Diamond lodge as well as his
guiding business, several have learnt the language and have Japanese
spouses.
At the moment, the result is a compelling mixture: Japanese enough to seduce,
but with menus and other essentials in English. Whether or not you eat
sushi, the food is excellent on and off the hill. Mountain lunches are
surprisingly inexpensive: a substantial noodle or rice bowl with meat or
fish costs about £3.50.
One of the seductions is surprise. It is hard to imagine an architect sitting
down to design the Rusutsu Resort, a 3,000bed complex standing alone in a
semi-wilderness snowscape surrounded by fairy-light fantasies that twinkle
throughout the day.
A monorail connects the main building to a residential tower and a fairground
carousel fills the atrium between two enormous wings. Quirkiness reigns: on
one throughway, guests slumped in armchairs sing along to Musical Fountains,
a water, sound and light show featuring tunes from Tchaikovsky, Strauss and The
Sound of Music.
By comparison, Niseko offers more choice, with three main access points to an
extensive lift system on the slopes around Mount An’nupuri. Hirafu is
vaguely village-style, with “eat till you burst” sushi in the Alpen Hotel
and Euro nightlife to follow. Don’t miss beer around the log fire in Hank’s
or jazz and cocktails in the Fridge.
The second sector is dominated by the Higashiyama Prince Hotel, a circular
tower with a windowless and alarmingly glittery buffet restaurant, a poor
complement to quality rooms. The Nikko An’nupuri Hotel, the heart of the
third sector, is friendly, gourmet and architecturally understated. It is
also totally ski in, ski out, so on-slope that one shares the eerie
semi-floodlit powder with the red foxes that roam the forest at nightfall.
All the hotels have Western-style beds, showers and tubs, but they also have onsen,
Japan’s celebrated gender-segregated public bathing areas. For the British
visitor, nudity in the bath place may be an alarming thought, but no way as
alarming as the reality of stripping off in front of Japanese teenagers.
After exhaustive ablutions crouched on an upturned plastic bucket, it’s time
for the walk of shame to the heated pools. At the Prince, the open-air
option looks out over a lake full of carp, which swim up to the barrier to
nuzzle trailing fingers.
After years of wrangling, Niseko’s three areas have negotiated a joint pass,
but their separate development is reflected in lifts ranging from gondolas
and covered quads to single chairs. One of these leads to the An’nupuri Peak
trail, a short stroll to a modest high point of 1,219m (4,000ft). It’s
small-scale by Alpine standards, but with thigh-high powder daily, who
cares?
Need to know
Minty Clinch travelled to Japan with Inghams (020-8780 4433, www.inghams.co.uk),
which has seven nights’ half board from £995pp, including flights with Japan
Airlines from Heathrow to Sapporo via Osaka and transfers. Six-day lift
passes cost £121 for Rusutsu and £117 in Niseko. Departures are until March
31, and start again in December.
Further information: www.seejapan.co.uk
