Fu’s Snow Resort Sapporo

Fujino Outdoor Sports Stadium morphs into Fu’s Snow Resort during winter. Located close to the city of Sapporo, it’s popular with locals who want to get some turns in after work. It’s not likely to capture the attention of too many international powder hounds, unless you just happened to be in the area when it was dumping chicken feathers from the sky.

Pros and Cons of Fu’s

Pros

•  Lift passes are cheap and you can get a 2, 3, 4 or 6 hour pass. Even an all-day ticket is inexpensive.
• The ski resort has night skiing so you can get in more turns if it’s dumping with snow.
• It’s close to the city of Sapporo.
• It's good for beginners who don't need lessons.

Cons

• It’s a small ski resort, with limited terrain variety, both on-piste and off-piste.

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective

• The ski resort has a favourable aspect, but the elevation is not particularly high, so unless you’re just doing groomers, you’d want to visit when it’s snowing or shortly after.
• There is only a small amount of tree skiing, and you’ll need the skills for tight trees. There is a high chance there will be negligible competition for freshies.

Fu’s Ski and Snowboard Terrain

Fu’s is a small ski area with only 260 metres of vertical (260 to 540m) and 8 courses (2 green, 3 red, and 3 black). It has 3 pair lifts that are slow without being too slow, and as is commonly seen in Japan, the top lift doesn’t have a safety bar. The lifts continue into the evening for night skiing aka nighta.

The beginner terrain is delightfully mellow and wide, so it’s good for learning, although you might have to dodge some of the school kids on weekdays. There isn’t a lot of intermediate terrain, but one steep groomer is fun for speedy turns, and for advanced riders there are a couple of moguls runs. The Dynamic Course hits 38 degrees at some stage, but the real challenge is dependent on the size of the bumps.

Off-piste (ie within resort boundaries) riding options are very limited, whilst the sidecountry opens up a bit of terrain that you can ride discretely. Skiers’ right off the top lift is an old lift line and there’s a small section there where you can play undisturbed. Ingress to skiers’ left is OK but it’s fenced off the full vertical, so you can’t get back in without dropping right to the base.

Fu’s Snow

The snowfall volume for Fu’s Ski Resort is unknown, but the city of Sapporo supposedly receives an average of 6.3 metres of snow annually, which provides a bit of an indication for Fu’s. Fu’s Snow Resort is also pretty close to Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort which probably gets about 18 metres of snow per season.

One could assume that powder days bring plenty of quality snow to Fu’s, and it has a mostly NNE orientation, so the snow is not affected much by the sun. What Fu’s ski resort doesn’t have going for it is elevation, and it’s much lower than some of its nearby ski resorts such as Sapporo Kokusai, Sapporo Teine and Kiroro which are 500 to 600 metres higher. Altitude is similar to Bankei and Moiwayama.

Where is Fu’s Snow Resort?

Fu’s is located in its namesake Fujino in the Minami Ward (ie south) of Sapporo. It is 18km southwest of the Sapporo train station. Fu’s Snow Resort is located just off Route 230 that heads out of the city, and the road up to the ski area is somewhat steep. The telephone number for GPS navigation is 0115918111.

Fu’s run a shuttle bus from Makomanai Station.

Accommodation

There is no accommodation at the ski hill. You could stay in one of the Sapporo hotels or Jozankei Onsen village is just 12km to the west, which also makes a nice base to visit Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort. Jozankei Onsen accommodation consists of traditional Japanese ryokan and other hot spring hotels.

Facilities

The Fu’s ski resort facilities and services cover the basics. There is a cafeteria with standard ski resort fare plus tasty crepes. Fu’s has ski and snowboard lessons in Japanese, standard rental equipment, a tiny retail shop, and lockers.

Adjacent to the ski resort is a luge practice course, and there are lessons open to the public if you like to speed downhill with zero control!