Hakusan Senjo Onsen Seymour

Hakusan Seymour Ski Resort has been known under many guises over the years such as “Kanazawa Seymour” to reflect its proximity to the city of Kanazawa, and “Hakusan Senjo Onsen Seymour” to indicate its position above the hot spring village and Mt Hakusan. Its namesake was also inspired by the Canadian ski resort, Seymour, and you can also throw “SAM” into its name to reflect the Snow Area Management.

Hakusan Seymour is a good ski resort to visit in partnership with some cultural experiences in Kanazawa. Whilst nearby Hakusan Ichirino Ski Resort has better developed amenities and very good beginner terrain, Hakusan Seymour is steeper, so it’s better suited to intermediates and powder hounds.

Pros and Cons of SAM Hakusan Seymour

Pros

• The ski area offers great views across the Kaga Plain to the Sea of Japan and to Mt Hakusan.
• Hakusan Seymour usually has good jump parks set up.
• It has some decent pitch.
• Seymour Ski Resort provides initial access to some ripper backcountry.

Cons

• It’s a small ski resort and doesn’t offer a wide variety of courses.
• Bus services to Hakusan Seymour are limited.

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective

• It’s not the best ski resort for beginners.
• Hakusan Seymour tends to score a lot of snow. Whilst the slope aspect is mostly favourable, the ski area isn’t at a high elevation considering its latitude so don’t always expect fluffy Japow.
• Not much in the way of English is spoken and you’ll get a quintessential Japanese ski-jo experience.
• Hakusan Seymour has some great tree skiing, although the ski patrollers are very slow at coming around to a tolerance for off-piste skiing.

Hakusan Seymour Ski and Snowboard Terrain

Like many ski resorts in Japan, Seymour is a small ski area. It’s mostly narrow and spans 1,030 metres elevation down to a rather low base of 300 metres (730m vertical). Hakusan Seymour has 9 marked trails (10 in reality because G course is 2 separate trails) which equate to 10km of piste.

There are 4 lifts: a quad at the base; and three double chairlifts further up the hill. The pair lifts don’t have safety bars, which is all too common in Japan and bizarrely not in keeping with their usual anal safety approach. Lift lines can ensue on weekends, and the top lift is particularly popular.

There are 4 green/beginner trails that not that easy for novices and only 3.5 red trails. The 4 black runs have some decent pitch, and one hits a maximum gradient of 38 degrees. It’s a shame they don’t run a winch cat groomer down these trails, in part because moguls aren’t fun for those without a full complement of knee cartilage, and because the resort manages the snowpack poorly. It’s somewhat common that glide cracks develop and sometimes avalanche, so rather than managing the stability they just close the run, further shrinking an already small ski resort.

If you haven’t bashed your knees on the moguls, you can always head into the freestyle park which is usually primarily jumps.

There is some great tree skiing terrain and perhaps management are slowly warming up to the idea of off-piste skiing, although the official stance is that they don’t want you in the trees due to the risk of dropping an avalanche onto one of the beginner trails. In other parts of the world, they’d manage the snowpack, but this is Japan.

Resort management has more of an appetite for going outside resort boundaries, so long as you fully treat it like the backcountry which is to be expected. Hakusan Seymour provides access to some amazing backcountry terrain, with ridge after ridge and snow-filled gullies with beautifully spaced trees.

Hakusan Seymour Snow

The ski resort sits right in the path of snowstorms that come in from the northwest, so it tends to get a lot of snow. The Seymour snow base peaks at about 2.5 metres on average. In terms of snow quality, the mostly NW facing slopes are a plus whilst its coastal nature is a detractor along with the top elevation being not particularly high relative to its latitude. The base elevation is really low, and it doesn’t take much for the slopes to turn into slops.

Where is Hakusan Senjo Onsen Seymour?

The Seymour Ski Resort is located in the Ishikawa Prefecture, 30km south of the city of Kanazawa. Seymour is slightly closer to Kanazawa than its neighbour Ichirino Ski Resort, which is to the southeast and 31km away by road.

It’s ideal if you have a car to travel to Hakusan Seymour, and it’s about a 45 to 50 minute drive from downtown Kanazawa. Alternatively there is a bus service between Kanazawa and Hakusan Seymour, but there is only one schedule per day and only on weekends and holidays.

Accommodation

There is a small collection of lodgings at the base of the ski resort. Pension Hakuza is no-frills whilst a nicer pick is Senjo Onsen Seiryu (Senjo Onsen Clear Stream) which is about 180 metres walk from the base lift.

Most people visit the Seymour ski resort as a day trip and stay in Kanazawa accommodation.

Facilities

The amenities are a little more basic than at Ichirino and include equipment rentals and a snowsports school (Japanese language only). Your eating needs are covered with a cafeteria mid-mountain and a few other spots to buy food and beverages.

You can have an onsen at the end of the day at Senjo Onsen Clear Stream and get a small discount on the entry fee if you show your lift pass.