Skiing in Japan?

[lindsey]

Alright first off, I really love to go skiing and everything where I live on the US east coast ( I know it's probably not as good as the Rockys ), and I'm going to be an excahnge student to Japan next year for a whole year and I've heard that Japan does have mountains with snow in the north.

I was wondering if there were any skiers out there who have skied in Japan before and know what it's like? I know that they have skiing in the north but is it different than the skiing here? Do they do more downhill skiing than cross country skiing or vise versa? And do many Japanese people go skiing? It'd be great if someone could give me a few more details on the topic.

[chikara]

.... I've heard that Japan does have mountains with snow in the north. ......

There are many good ski resorts on Hokkaido but also in the Japanses Alps on Honshu. The 1998 Winter Olympics were held in Nagano.

I'm not a (snow) skier myself but I know that ski tours from this country to Japan are very popular.

Have a look at this website.

[lindsey]

Thanks a bunch for the info! The website really helped me a lot with all my questions.

[welldone101]

I skiied all last year and boarded all this year on resorts in Aomori-ken and Iwate-ken. The mountain skiing is fantastic. It snows almost every day during January and February. Boarding on Hakkoda was the highlight, since at the top you go through all the snowmonsters (the frozen tops of 20 foot trees poking out of the snow).

Definitely go skiing here! Buy your gear used in Japan at a second hand shop. Everybody here buys new so there's loads of good deals. You can also buy new in the spring for super cheap if you do a whole package of stuff. Tie your vacation days into 3 day weekends and reserve a cheap ryokan room near the slope and you can do 2 full days of skiing for less than $200 if you don't rent and take the cheap train.

A lot of people here do telemark. I've seen basically no cross country at all. Boarding is huge.