Virtual Boarder : Niseko vs Hakuba?? and the Great debate

Niseko vs Hakuba?? and the Great debate - Powder snow or sunny weather?

Mission: Hakuba 2007

By skijay 21 Feb 2007

Niseko and Hakuba are quite different, like chalk and cheese. Of course we did visit both in different seasons, and Niseko was our first trip to the snows in Japan, whereas we had a lot more experience by the time we headed to Hakuba. But here is a discussion of the differences between Niseko and Hakuba, which will probably interest those who are planning their Japan 2008 trip.

1. WEATHER - Hakuba is about twenty or thirty degrees warmer than Niseko. On the mountain, the temperature in Niseko was often minus 15-18 degrees - Here in Hakuba, we reached a sunny 9 degrees yesterday. On a warm day, one can probably board in a tshirt and jacket here, and you definitely won't need thermals on a sunny day. It does get a little cooler in the shade and later in the afternoon, but not freezing. There isn't a single puff of wind, and visibility is crystal clear. We never got these conditions in Niseko! In Niseko, the wind was always a force to be reckoned with - on certain areas of the mountain, it was impossible to stand up in the blizzard. Visibility was often close to zero.

It did get slightly colder when it snowed on Iwatake in Hakuba, and the wind did blow on one side of the mountain (but we managed to find shelter on the other side, where it was dead still). On two nights I remembered being very cold (it got down to minus 8 degrees) but nowhere near as cold as a night out in Niseko, where you are basically running from one warm building to another to escape freezing your body parts.

2. SNOW - Ahhhh, this is the tradeoff. Admittedly, the locals described this year in Hakuba as "the worst season in twenty years" and last year's season in Niseko was apparently bumper. Here's the rub - In 7 days in Hakuba, we had 2 days of a light dusting of snow (probably no more than 3 cm) - the rest of the time, you had reasonable snow on the upper slopes and conditions varied a lot on lower slopes. It was the first time I had seen any articial snow in Japan, and the snowmakers were certainly very busy on most mountains. And there was the unusual, unpredictable and awful phenomenon of freezing snow - on certain days, when the temperature dropped in the afternoon, artificial snow would freeze into large rocks, and it was like skiing down a gravel slope. Pretty awful. And here I am going to open the debate - Would you rather ski or board on champagne powder, while enduring the biting wind, sub zero temperatures, and worst of all, almost zero visibility? Or would you rather put up with less ideal snow, but have blue skies, excellent visibility, and not have to wear four layers of thermals?

In Niseko, you are almost guaranteed a daily dump of snow. There was so much snow that you spent some time each day extricating yourself from knee deep powder, if you were a novice to pow pow like myself. (This is rather tiring!) When it didn't snow for two days, everyone got quite worried, and cheered when the first snowflakes fell again.

We should add that it DUMPED in Hakuba on the day that we left. When we say dump it probably got to about 10 cm. But with such warm weather, it will probably melt pretty quickly.

3. THE TOWNS - In terms of the characters of the two towns, Niseko and Happo (the main ski village in Hakuba - You wouldn't want to stay in Hakuba town itself, as it's pretty far from the slopes) are completely different. Imagine a town buried in 9 metres of snow (This means slipping and sliding around on snow covered roads and paths), filled with the twang of Aussie accents everywhere, Lots of little restaurants and Izakayas (Japanese pubs) that fill up very quickly (We made a booking one night for an izakaya, and had to leave after a 2 hr session) - that's Niseko. It's like Bali but at the snows. They have Vegemite and Timtams at the local convenience store. Everyone in front of you in the line is Australian. There's plenty of people on the streets, and quite a few being rowdy as in the good old Oz fashion. Yeap, there's nightlife, but you might as well stay at Hotham.

Imagine a quaint little village full of delightful little buildings that are a curious mix of Alpine and Japanese architecture. You might run into a handful of foreigners, from all over the world (some Aussies included), but most people would not speak a word of English. And there's absolutely NOBODY on the streets. It's almost like a ghost town. There are a few restaurants, and they close early (8:30 or 9). By 10pm everyone is asleep. Even the local "gaijin" (foreigner) hangout, Uncle Steven's, is rarely packed. That's Happo.

In short, if you love being with hundreds of fellow Australians, speaking English all the time, and you must have nightlife and crowds, go to Niseko. If you don't mind the quiet life, and you can commit to getting by with broken Japanese and hand signals (The Japanese speak much better broken English than we did speaking broken Japanese) and sometimes not being able to get an English menu, go to Hakuba. Mind you, it may not be long before Hakuba turns into Niseko.

4. TERRAIN - Hakuba wins hands down here. There are at least 7 resorts that you can easily visit. Most of them are very high quality and large resorts. There are so many different runs to get to know, and a terrain park at each resort. It doesn't take long to get to each resort from Happo, though shuttle bus times are quite limited (the last shuttle back to Happo is usually at 5pm). The terrain seems steeper than in Niseko (maybe this was because we could actually SEE the gradient ha ha) but there is still something for everyone - it's certainly a great place for intermediates to improve a lot, Beginners would be able to find gentle green slopes and more challenging green slopes, and advanced boarders and skiiers could amuse themselves in the terrain parks (and skiiers would have plenty of mogul runs to test their skills).

Niseko's resorts did not have as much terrain. There were four main resorts - Grand Hirafu, a fairly run of the mill but large resort, Hanazono - where the only good things are crab ramen and skidoo riding (the terrain is laughable - a poor excuse for a ski resort if I ever saw one!), Annupuri, a small resort with lovely terrain but only about 3 runs (And lots of ski schools!!) and Higashiyama, which I didn't get to check out very well, but was pretty small from memory, having a long winding green run from top to bottom, with a few red runs here and there - should only qualify for being part of a resort, I think, not a full resort on its own.

5. COSTS - I think these are pretty similar across Niseko and Hakuba in terms of accomodation and food and lift passes.

6. GETTING THERE - Niseko is on the North Island which means getting there from Tokyo necessitates a plane trip then a 3 hr bus ride. You can also fly to Sapporo direct from Australia but these services are very limited (And I'm not sure if they are still available....)

Hakuba is 3.5 hrs by Express train from Tokyo, 4.5 hours by bus.

So there you go, folks. It was kind of weird being in Happo and not seeing anyone on the streets. Snow quality on some days left a bit to be desired. But I thoroughly enjoyed the blue skies and sun and not having to traipse through snow all the time. Hakuba tips the balance in terms of quality boarding - the terrain is better, and you get many more hours of snowboarding because the conditions are usually excellent. If it snowed just that little bit more, it would be perfect.