Super archaic lifts. Super slow.

Snow was crap when we were there early January.

Overpriced everything.

Stupid shuttle system where people bring their skis and boards on the bus?? Wtf?

Weak terrain. See our video here

The Hakuba Vally offers a lot of different riding. Hakuba One is the most crowded resort in the area based on my experience. In many of the resorts ski patrol will pull your lift ticket if you ski out of bounds. If you want good off piste riding and fresh lines go up to Corintina. It is a smaller resort but great tree runs, maybe the best tree runs in Honshu. Beginners shold try Tsugaiki Kogan. There is a huge open hill at the bottom for beginners to practice on. Tsugaikai also offer Heli skiing later in the Season and a rope way that goes far up the mountain. Both the Heli skiing and the rope way are not patrolled so ride at your own risk. I recommend the rope way ove the helicopter based on shear economics. The heli ride runs around 20,000 yen per person and the rope way was 750 per person. See our video here

Every ski area and village in Hakuba is rather different, so it’s somewhat difficult to make some generalisations about Hakuba. Firstly it was rather busy in most parts. Admittedly we did visit at a peak time but it couldn’t be helped. The queues to get a lift ticket or exchange a HV pass were ridiculously long at a few of the ski areas. The ski areas themselves were reasonably busy, but it’s all relative because they were quiet compared to some Colorado ski resorts but hectic compared to some of the lesser known Japanese ski resorts. Since we last visited, some of the ski areas have opened up designated tree zones. It snowed a lot during our trip, but the in-bounds trees tracked out very quickly at a few of the areas (but not all). It really emphasised that having a guide is useful and that the backcountry is the main strength of Hakuba, and if you want fresh powder and don’t want to earn your turns, go to Tohoku.

The central Hakuba villages have become a little more westernised and more expensive since our last visit. Some of the drinks prices in Echoland were ludicrous and a trendy café at the base of Happo One was charging 900 yen for about 10 corn chips and a mouthful of guacamole. Many more staff spoke English and international ski schools have spread across more of the ski resorts. Echoland was a case of “spot the Japanese”, with the bogan on a budget much more prevalent.

Conversely in the more peripheral Hakuba ski resorts, the “real Japan” was more evident. Food and drink were still cheap, and at a hotel in Goryu the staff didn’t speak one word of English, and at a Norikura hotel only a tiny percentage of staff spoke English, which was a little refreshing. At Kashimayari we saw no gaijin.

Considering each of the Hakuba ski resorts and village differ so much, you can see our reviews from this trip for the individual areas:
Hakuba 47
Goryu
Norikura
Cortina
Tsugaike
Kashimayari
Iwatake

You can see our Japanese ski resort ratings to see how the Hakuba ski areas compare, but keep in mind that Hakuba collectively would score much higher than the individual resorts. See our video here

Stayed at Brownie Condos Echoland - handy spot helpful managers. Fortunately had 100cm plus of new snow during the week. Skied and boarded Goryu, 47, Happo, Tsugaike, Iwatake and Cortina, on and off piste, trees and parks. In a nutshell a skiers and boarders top shelf smorgasbord. We will return! See our video here

I spent the 2016-17 season from late November to mid March working as a lifty in Tsugaike Kogen. Although Tsugaike isn't as steep as other resorts such as Happo & Goryu/47, the deep powder definitely makes up for it. Some days the snow was 50-60cm deep after just one night! Light and dry white gold!!!

If you're in Hakuba i would definitely recommend hopping on a daily shuttle bus over to Tsugaike during Jan-Feb and hitting the powder that no one seems to rate there..

I also snowboarded at Happo, Iwatake and Cortina. They were amazing. Small park at Iwatake was unreal, had it to myself for an hour one morning..

Crowds seem to be non-existant in Hakuba due to there being 11 resorts to choose from around the valley (expect Japanese national holidays and the busy Christmas - New Years period).

I'll be back Hakuba! See our video here

We were there end of January for two weeks and stayed in the charming (more upmarket) Wadono area two minutes walking distance to the Happo One Lifts and the free shuttle bus to the other resorts. We were amazed at how empty the resorts were despite it being peak season (having spent hours in previous seasons in other places in Japan queuing up for the lifts). Powder was amazing and we loved being able to ski different resorts depending on day/weather. We went to Happo One, Goryu and Hakuba 47. Being a big group was awesome. There was something for everyone. Well organised, friendly and flexible ski schools (Hakuba Ski School has great English speaking ski instructors from all over the world who have taught at Hakuba at many seasons- none of the kids/beginners were stuck with an instructor who was there for the first time as we have had in other parts of Japan, so they were really familiar with the mountain). Double black diamond runs and moguls are easy to find. We particularly liked that many of the easy runs crossed or met up with harder runs, so it was possible for an intermediate and expert skier to "ski together" and meet at certain points or at the bottom. It was also great that you quite often had an option to do a green/red run from the very top all the way down or choose the black runs down. It means that the beginners in our group weren't constantly on a lift and got to ski from the top to the bottom of the mountain. The lifts at the bottom of some of the more challenging black runs were great too - you could just do black runs over and over again.
The Hakuba 47 ski park with half pipes and jumps were fun and the tree runs throughout meant that you could easily ski in fresh powder every day.
Food was cheap, plentiful and reasonable. We have two favourite ramen noodle places, found countless charming ishikawa restaurants and chanced upon some awesome food trucks at the bottom of the Sakka lifts- Samurai terriyaki chicken sandwiches, tacos, thai food, homemade spicy plum sake and Little Alaskan Burgers.
The disco bus taking us to Momonoki Hotel minutes away for an absolutely amazing indoor/outdoor onsen and western/japanese buffet for everyone to enjoy was a hit!
We also enjoyed day trips to see the snow monkeys (seeing them fed and soaking in the onsen was brilliant), all you can eat strawberry picking and a really fun evening learning about Japanese drums, rice cake making at the Goryu centre.
Everyone was really friendly and lovely from the ski lift operators, ski rental, locals, bus drivers, ski school and restaurant staff. Best ski holiday every.
Hakuba-we are in love and will definitely be back! See our video here

Hakuba is a lovely mountain valley area in the Japanese Alpa.... The resorts do no avalanche control, piste grooming is limited & the mountains have few side country options allowed... the town of Hakuba is spread out & like a ghost town after 7pm.... Fir me there is way better options to ski & stay at.... this place lacks atmosphere big time See our video here

spent 10days/nights staying in wadano near the lifts of happo one.in the morning the hotel manager would phone around different stations to find which lifts were / weren't running due to wind /snow conditions etc and find best conditions for that day - the hotel bus would then ship us to that resort and pick up at end of day. we done happo one ,iwatake , goryu, hakuba 47 and Cortina and although the snowfall this year had been lacking in the weeks leading up to our trip we scored with plentiful snowfalls over the 10 days with lots of powder runs. only 1 bluebird day the whole time we were there so take your flat light goggles. the wind was an issue on a couple days where they would shut the top of the hill but plenty of fresh lines to be had the next day when they opened it again so make sure you check which resort has best conditions each morning. lift queues were virtually non existant - the only time I waited was 5 mins on a bottle neck with only a 2 man chair at the bottom of an awesome powder run at happo after they had opened the run up. lifts in general are slow/old lacking safety bar and foot rests but adds to the charm I suppose but might be scarey for young kids and all the lifties were great and always had a smile. there are some gondolas and 4 seater chairs around the resorts and didn't see any drag lifts. the pistes are well maintained but can get chopped up after a dump but if you know where to go you can score freshies all day. the apres is a little disappointing with a few pokie bars/cafes and the lift bases at the different hills serving beers. nightlife - there are bars/restaurants scattered all around the wadano/echoland area and all the ones we went to were good and reasonably priced. taxis were cheap only about £5 around town.

cheap lift passes, good snowfall, freshies, cheap beer, friendly locals , good food. ill be back! See our video here

great snow but enormously outdated equipment. 2 seater lifts with no protection bar. If there was a little wind they closed all lifts as it was deemed to dangerous. We were there 11 days and lifts were closed for 4 days due to a little wind ....
Never again See our video here

Flying into Narita was good. Make sure you know when the shuttles or trains can move you to the Hakuba Valley. We couldn't get in before 9:30am so we had to spend an extra night in a hotel. Nagano Snow Shuttle moved the family for about $200 each direction. Not too bad and comparable to the train and other commercial bus services. Shuttle schedule around Hakuba Valley adjacent towns, and between the mountains is terrible. One shuttle each hour if you're lucky. Shuttles in the morning go to the hill, but don't come back until the afternoon and there are no shuttles either direction over lunch. Your only alternative is over priced taxi service if you're trying to move between mountains when they close for wind. Happo One will refund your money if they close lifts...we lost two days of skiing due to wind; however, Goryu and 47 would not...lost $100 on that hill. Went over Christmas 2015...crowd was terrible, mostly because none of the lifts were open. The day we arrived the bottom of the mountain didn't even have snow...only the top 1000' was open. Luckily it snowed 2 days later and some additional runs were opened. Impossible to tell which hills/lifts are open until you spend the hour needed to get to the hill, only to find out you really want to be at a different hill. If you go to Hakuba, stay very near the lifts, and don't go until after the New Year to ensure you have good snow for the money you'll spend. Bottom line, 2 days of good skiing out of 6, over priced taxis, too infrequent shuttle runs, and terrible wind that closes mountains. Not a good experience and won't be returning. Maybe Niseko next year. See our video here