Niseko Ski Trip: Hokkaido Powder, Onsen Nights and Otaru

New Chitose Airport

The Skybus to Niseko takes about three hours and must be booked ahead in season. Most flights from Tokyo land late morning.

Niseko Grand Hirafu

Collect rentals at the base. Hirafu runs night skiing until 8:30pm under lights — worth two runs even on arrival day.

Hirafu Village

The strip below the gondola: ramen counters, izakaya and a surprising number of Australians.

Yukoro Onsen

Iron-rich water, open late, and two minutes from the lifts.

Niseko Grand Hirafu

First tracks on the east face. One Niseko United pass covers all four resorts and the traverses between them.

Niseko Hanazono Resort

The quietest of the four and the best groomers, with the Hanazono 308 lift up to the ridge.

Niseko Village Ski Resort

Tree runs through the birch, and the gondola back for a proper sit-down lunch.

Niseko Annupuri International Ski Area

West-facing, so it holds the last light. Traverse back over the top before the lifts close.

Niseko Moiwa Ski Resort

Two lifts, no crowds, and the powder stays untracked until afternoon because nobody outside Niseko knows it is here.

Niseko Takahashi Dairy Farm Milk Kobo

Cream puffs and drinking yoghurt with Yotei filling the window. The single most photographed building in the valley.

Mount Yotei

Hokkaido's Fuji. Ski touring routes leave from the Hangetsuko side — guided only, and only with avalanche gear.

Makkari Onsen

An outdoor bath with Yotei directly in front of you. Worth the thirty-minute drive round the mountain.

Lake Toya

A caldera lake that never freezes, ringed by snow. About 90 minutes from Niseko.

Mount Usu Ropeway

Up an active volcano for the view back over the lake and out to Uchiura Bay.

Showa Shinzan

A lava dome that pushed up out of a wheat field in 1943 and is still steaming.

Toyako Onsen

Lakeside baths, and the fireworks run nightly here even in winter.

Otaru Canal

Gas lamps and stone warehouses. In February the Snow Light Path fills the canal with candles in snow hollows.

Sakaimachi Street

Merchant houses turned into music-box makers, glassworks and bakeries.

Otaru Sushiya-dori

Twenty sushi counters on one street, fed by the Sea of Japan an hour up the road. Uni and scallop are the local order.

Kitaichi Glass

The Hall lit by 167 oil lamps is free to walk into and is the warmest room in Otaru.

Tenguyama Ropeway

One of Hokkaido's three great night views, and a small ski hill at the top if you still have legs.

Odori Park

A kilometre of park through the middle of the city, and the site of the Sapporo Snow Festival in early February.

Sapporo Clock Tower

Ten minutes is enough. It is small, it is famous, and everyone photographs it anyway.

Nijo Market

Kaisendon for lunch — crab, salmon roe and scallop over rice, at the source.

Sapporo Beer Museum

The only beer museum in Japan, in a red-brick 1890 malt house, with a Genghis Khan lamb grill attached.

New Chitose Airport

Forty minutes by rapid train from Sapporo Station. Allow extra in a snowstorm — they are common and delays are normal.