Engaru Ski Area Hokkaido

Engaru Rock Valley Ski Area is a little local ski-jo in northeast Hokkaido, in a region where the lowlands during winter are just a sea of white. It’s definitely not a “rock valley”, so let’s just call it the Engaru Ski Area! The small ski area was started up by the local farmers, and recently it’s become a fraction more known and accessible because it sits alongside the Asahikawa Monbetsu Expressway, and the day lodge doubles as a roadside station. Nevertheless, Engaru remains a long way from anywhere that’s on the radar of international skiers and snowboarders.

Besides being next to an expressway, Engaru’s other claim to fame is that it has a little summer slope, in case you wanted to get some mellow turns in during the warm months.

Pros and Cons of Engaru Ski Area

Pros 

• If the conditions are prime, you won’t have to contend with too many other powder hounds to get fresh lines.

Cons

• Engaru is a very small ski area which won’t entertain experienced riders for too long.
• It’s a mega commitment to get there from any decent Hokkaido ski resorts or towns that you’d typically use as a base. The upside is that not many others will make the trek.

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective

• Engaru doesn’t get the same massive snow volumes as the heavy hitting Hokkaido ski resorts near the west coast, however its northerly position ensures cold temperatures, and it has a pure northerly aspect, so the snow quality stays primo in winter.
• Lift passes are cheap, although you don’t get a lot of terrain or lifts for your yen.

Engaru Ski and Snowboard Terrain

Like a lot of the other ski areas in northeastern Hokkaido, Engaru Ski Resort is very small. It only has 6 courses and one double chairlift, which is reasonably new by Japanese ski resort standards. It’s a low elevation ski area that relies heavily on its northern latitude (44.02 degrees N) for snow surety, and the elevation is 135 to 405 metres, with a vertical of 270 metres.

Engaru Rock Valley Ski Area has night skiing some days of the week, and during summer it has “skiing” on the summer slope “6980 Pis Rabbi” on weekends. This matted slope is just on the mellow part of the main face, and it relies on the mid-station of the chair lift for unloading.

There is a beginner run that skirts around the skiers’ right boundary and branches into a few mellow options. There is one red/intermediate slope called “Utopia”, and a couple of advanced/black runs that are not particularly steep, and the run that drops down the main face is usually groomed and some speedy fun.

Pending adequate snow base, the off-piste areas are a mix of evergreens and deciduous trees, and you can’t get into too much trouble. Heading into the sidecountry is a different affair and you need to take care that you don’t end up in a drainage that terminates well away from the resort.

Snow

Engaru has an easterly position in Hokkaido very close to the north coast, but considering the prevailing storms come from the NW and that the NW knob of Hokkaido is quite wide, Engaru doesn’t get huge amounts of snow.

Thankfully despite being called Engaru Rock Valley, it’s not a rocky hill and doesn’t need a deep base to be operational, and the lower summer slope only needs a little bit of snow.

Other pros for the snow are that the slopes have a north facing aspect and it’s a very cold region.

Where is Engaru Ski Resort?

Engaru Ski Area is in the northeastern part of Hokkaido and 5km from the town of Engaru in the Okhotsk subprefecture. It sits alongside the Asahikawa Monbetsu Expressway, close to the Engaru Interchange.

Engaru Ski Resort is:

• 114km ENE of Asahikawa via the Asahikawa Monbetsu Expressway (about 1:30 hours)
• 250km northeast of Sapporo via the Doo Expressway and Asahikawa Monbetsu Expressway (approximately 3:20 hours)
• 74km northeast of the town of Kamikawa, which is near the famed Kurodake
• 164km northeast of Furano
• 136km southeast of Nayoro Piyashiri Ski Resort

There is no public transport to get there, unless you want to take a 15 minute taxi from the Engaru train station, so you really need a car to get there.

Accommodation

From your base at an Asahikawa hotel, Engaru Ski Resort is a little spot you could visit for a day trip, or there is potential you might visit Engaru is you were staying in Kamikawa and the Kurodake ropeway was closed.

Or if you wanted to explore this part of Hokkaido a little more, there are some options for accommodation in the town of Engaru.

Engaru Accommodation Listings

Facilities

The day lodge is reasonably modern and was built as a roadside station when the Expressway was constructed. The second floor of the roadside station opens onto the slopes. It has a small cafeteria where the soft-serve ice-cream is a hit, and it has a gift shop selling sundries, snacks and drinks. Other amenities include ski school and equipment rentals.