We visited Zao Onsen for 8 days in beginning of March 2026 and stayed at the Meitoya-So ryokan.
We really enjoyed Zao and had average to excellent conditions over the 8 days of skiing.
Various opinions about the hotel and Zao Onsen: 
About 200 metres up and down walk from the door of the hotel to nearest lift (Chuo cablecar). Not ski in/ski out but manageable.
Extensive lift network (about 30 lifts) but many double chairs are no longer operational and the double chairs that are still going are 50+ years old, slow and without safety bars. 4 fast quads make up for the others a bit.
Its obvious that there is no money for new lifts, just like hundreds of other Japanese resorts.
Poor connections between two main ski areas meant multiple lifts to get from one side of mountain to the other. Gondolas and cable cars were fine despite their age. Mostly non skier tourists go to the top to view snow monsters.

Hardly any lift lines anywhere in Zao. 10 minutes was the longest wait time for the gondola to the top (1660m).
Mostly beginner and intermediate terrain with the steepest run closed due to avalanche danger. A lot of traversing bewteen different areas. Longest run about 8km. Advanced skiers might get bored with the lack of challenge.
Cheap day lift tickets averaging about $60AUD if you bought from the hotel with cash

Snow varied between good quality dry snow and freeze/thaw stuff the entire time although there was new snow on 3 days when we were there, so we did a bit of off piste.
Reasonable elevation (780m base and 1660m top) combined with northern Honshu latitude meant that we  didn't get the sometimes slushy conditions at base of places like Hakuba and Nozawa.

Meitoya-So ryokan
Excellent indoor and outdoor onsen
Good, warm ski locker room
Very good breakfast buffet of Japanese food and some croissants
Large room and comfortable beds
Helpful and friendly staff.
Common lounge area for apres ski with non alcohol welcome drinks
Village is authentic but quiet. Similar to Nozawa but smaller scale and much less busy. Limited selection of restaurants.
Not many Westerners so more of an authentic Japanese resort
Games room with table tennis for a small fee.
Excellent ramen/soba food court at Jupeer base

Things that could be better, depending on POV:
Quiet village, unlike Niseko, Nozawa or Hakuba in the evening. If you want lively apres ski, don't go to Zao.
The steepest run was closed the entire time we were there.
Famed snow monsters were not there due to warm February.
See our video here

While it’s a pleasant place, the lifts have a terrible layout requiring a lot of skating, The majority are mainly slow double chairs (plenty of them). The trees for the most part are very tight. If this is what you like, then it’s the place for you.
See our video here

A large, beautiful ski area blessed with great snowfall and few crowds. On weekends you’ll get walking tourists clogging up the gondolas to go see the snow monsters at the summit, but otherwise it’s very empty.
Plenty of long, broad reds, a handful of spicier walls. Not much in the way of off-piste opportunities, but snowpack was too low at our time of visit so maybe that changes. We did find expanses of untouched powder straight off the baby chair, though, so maybe the trees aren’t necessary.
Unfortunately the place suffers from some truly heinous lift placements. Skier or boarder, you will be walking multiple times per day. The map shows runs linking up; you get there and find you’re 20m downhill of where you need to be. Lifts are closed at random, necessitating huge detours. Pick a side for the day and stick with it - the leftmost and rightmost sides on the map are the best.
Town is a strange place. It’ll get there, but for now, expect nothing and maybe you’ll be surprised. Would recommend getting dinner included unless you like surviving on Lawson’s chicken.
See our video here

Non stop snow, very cold and next to no lines at chairlifts.
Great food on the mountain, not much around at night
See our video here

We are a family of 5 and we spent a week at Zao Onsen in January 2024. We experienced a lower than usual snow base, but we had some excellent fresh snow during our stay and I think that all runs within the resort were open.
By Japanese standards Zao is a good sized resort and we had enough exploring and favourite runs to easily keep us going for the week - especially with some excellent fresh snow days mixed in!
Zao has a very cool traditional town area at the base. It's worth noting that Zao was/is an onsen town hundreds of years before the snow resort came along, so this can help to explain the somewhat disjointed feel in the ways that the lifts, runs and different areas don't always fit together particularly well. The resort layout is a bit clunky and for snowboarders, there is some skating required to get from place to place.
Having said all that, we found that a good way to explore was to base ourselves in one area for the day and do all the runs there, rather than move all across the mountain.
There is a great variety of runs across Zao, nothing particularly challenging, and definitely well suited to intermediates, but plenty of fun for advanced riders too. The trees are tight and not great for tree skiing, but there are some super fun POW stashes under several lift lines and also under the main Zao ropeway. If you want to cruise top to bottom, there are some real thigh burners available.
We also loved wandering around the town at the end of each day, exploring the different restaurants and another highlight was a wooden doll painting session that we did as a family.
We travelled to Zao from Tokyo on the Yamagata Shinkansen which was very relaxing with great scenery, and then it was a straight forward bus trip from Yamagata to the resort. Everything in town was easy walking distance.
Onsens and some local bars were awesome after dinner. We stayed at Hotel Lucent Takamiya, in a traditional Japanese room, which I would highly recommend.
See our video here

It is an old town so not a party place, there is heaps of places to explore on the skies. Lots of lifts, caters well for beginners and intermediate skiing (the pros can go back country) and the locals are nice. Plus after after a great day of skiing sit in an onsen and chillax. We will be back with a big smile.
See our video here

Visit Za ok during early February and enjoy the snow Monster festival. The lifts are confusing but everything else is great.
See our video here

Trip report for #Japow19.

It's fair to say we arrived with high expectations, but have been disappointed by the snow so far.

Our first few days were at Zao Onsen. The village dates back nearly 2000 years and, as with many old Japanese resort towns, it owes its history and life to the volcanic heated hot springs. Anyone who has ever been to Rotorua would recognise the smell immediately.

The village is ringed by a low range of mountains and the ski field spreads across the front of the range right into the heart of the town.

A complex and disjointed lift system takes you to almost where you thought you might like to be, mostly.

Unfortunately, the flat middle of the field needs to be traversed as you try and get across or up and down the field.

Generally, fall lines are hard to find here and the runs are inconsistent.

If the snow had been good, none of this would have been more than a minor inconvenience.

Unfortch, the snow and the riding was exactly like being at Ruapehu on a bad spring day.

Passing low cloud, ice patches, churned refreeze, all combined to make this a pretty average riding experience.

So, if you have VERY good snow and the patience to walk through or pole across the flat bits, and you want to check out a Japanese onsen resort village devoid (mostly) of gaijin, Zao Onsen could be worth a crack. But if the season is at all iffy, I'd look elsewhere.
See our video here

Zao is off the normal beaten path for the travelling skier, and whilst a large ski field, there was not enough here for us to wish to return as skiers. This is an intermediates resort at best with groomed trail skiing predominantly the main activity. There are 2 or 3 black runs but really they are just maybe 32 or 33 degrees for about 100m linking more intermediate trails. These so called black runs have an easier alternative run down, so uncrowded with stragglers, but way too short to want to lap. Off piste is nice enough with well spaced trees and gullies of reasonable steepness, but nearly all end up at flats and so a lot of walk-outs if you don't have a guide, and guides are hard to find here. Within the resort, the lift set up is crazy, with apparently nine different owners of the 42 lifts here. The lift set up looks like they are designed to keep you in certain areas once you are there? Quite a bit of skating, poling or clipping out of boards to get to adjoining lifts to take you further across the resort. We have never seen so many boarders walking and carrying boards on piste across flats. Additionally at the very top (snow monster territory) you find groups of people walking around on the ski runs!!! AVOID the base Zao cable car at all costs. We made that mistake and took an 1.5 hours to get on the thing and then crushed in like sardines all the way up for 10 mins, Then another ropeway to the top with same thing but no horrific wait. Be warned, there are more tourists than skiers and boarders at this lift area and at the top runs going to see Juhyo. The actual town is a ghost town after the sun goes down (about 4pm). Streets are deserted and if you try restaurants after 7pm you may be disappointed as more often than not had already stopped taking orders. One big plus is the locals. Like almost everywhere in Japan, they are incredibly happy having foreigners come to Zao and are very proud of their village and Yamagata and are only too pleased to offer you any amount of their time and knowledge. It is only on these review sites is where I witness any antagonism by foreign guests to other foreigners and it is usually Australians bagging their fellow Australians for alleged bad behaviour or for so called over running resorts with their presence. After just clicking up 30 resorts visited in Japan over many years, we have not once witnessed any of this or had any Japanese complain at all about foreigners visiting, in fact it is very much the opposite. Glad we did come and see Zao, but because of the travel to get here and the lack of challenge on piste, just a few days would suffice.
See our video here

Amazing runs, great people and not over the top in pricing. The runs are sensational for all and excellent for beginners, There is no night life but we go to ski not get smashed and embarrass ourselves, ski, onsen and enjoy the moment. respect the people and they will return in kind
See our video here