Naeba ski resort is a huge resort with a huge hotel and many trails. It is also connected with Kagura Ski Resort through a 5km long ropeway.
Naeba Prince Hotel
Naeba prince hotel is a solid 3-star hotel. It’s super wide, with a total of 6 buildings, all interconnected. The indoors are very warm, you can even walk around wearing t-shirts and shorts very comfortably.
Room & Facilities
The room is a very standard 3-star hotel room, and the only entertainment facilities it gets apart from the ski trails are 2 small hot springs. The hot springs are very minimalistic. The bigger one has 2 areas, one with the still-comfy capacity of about 15 people, another maybe 10 or less. It has none of a cold spring, a sauna, a steam room, or a spa, which is a huge disappointment.
Foods
There are many skiing / snowboarding equipment stores and a variety of restaurants tho, from Italian to bar to 居酒屋. There’s also a food court. The breakfast buffet is Japanese, and the 湯泡飯 is super delicious! Ate it every morning.
Equipment Rentals
You can rent almost every type of equipment here, including skis, boots, helmets, snow jackets, and pants. If you find something missing, you can also buy them from the stores. I’m not an expert in skiing at all, in fact, it’s the first time I ski, but the equipment is of pretty high-quality imo. Not sure about the skis & boots, but the snow jackets & pants are definitely much better than the cheapest ones I saw in Decathlon.
Skiing Trails
Naeba
Trails I’ve skied: J1, A1, D1, E1, B1, H1, H2, F1, G3, G1, C1/DG1, G2, L1
Lifts I’ve used: A, J, D, E, H, G, L, C/DG
Naeba Ski Resort consists of 3 areas, the summit, the base, and the forest area.
Base Area
The base area is pretty boring tbh. Most of the trails are big wide straight courses with little views and variety. However, the most beginner-friendly trails are here, so if you’re in like the first few hours of skiing, you’re pretty much stuck here. If you want to ski at night (before 8:30 pm), this area is also the only option, because the lifts in other areas close rather early.
Forest Area
The forest area is pretty interesting as you’re skiing between the woods. The trails are all green and very wide so it’s also fairly beginner-friendly.
Summit Area
I didn’t ski much in the summit area as I’m a beginner, but the trails are generally more narrow. If you ski from the very top of the mountain to the bottom, you can ski at most 4 km, which is pretty wild (or so I thought as an absolute newbie). However, as the summit is very far, the ropeway takes like 10 minutes to get there, therefore (among other reasons probably) the ropeway closes at very early, like 3pm. So if you want to ski in the summit area, you better get up early.
Tashiro
Kagura Ski Resort is a huge resort consists of 3 areas, Tashiro 田代, Kagura 神樂, and Mitsumata. With the 5km ropeway “Dragondola”, you can get to Tashiro from Naeba in 20 minutes. However, the ropeway opens at 9 am and closes at 3:30 pm, so you only have a very limited time window to explore Kagura Ski Resort if you stay at Naeba Prince Hotel. This means it may be challenging for even advanced skiers to enjoy the Mitsumata area, given that you’ll need to have lunch and get back to Dragondola before 3:30 pm.
This time, I only get the chance to explore Tashuro area, so I can only talk about it.
Trails I’ve skied: U1, X2, X1, Y1, X3, U2, V2
Lifts I’ve used: DG, V, U, X
Tashiro area is pretty similar to the forest area in Naeba. It consists of almost exclusively long & wide courses in the forest, and the slopes are generally not too steep. The view is much better than Naeba’s as the snowy forest looks awesome and you can even see Lake Tashiro far away from vantage points such as on the lifts. In general, for beginners, the Tashiro area is definitely much more fun to ski than Naeba.
There are 3 restaurants in the Tashiro area, and I’ve been to restaurant 3, which is supposedly just beside Lake Tashiro, but not actually. You cannot see any trace of the lake from the restaurant at all (IIRC). The restaurant is pretty nice tho, the seats are wide and comfortable, the food is okay, and you can enjoy whatever drinks offered with ¥500. You can recharge here and then get on with your journey.
Final Thoughts
It’s my first time skiing so I really have no way to compare it with other ski resorts, but I thoroughly enjoy my time here. Will I want to go back and ski there again? Maybe not. There are so many more ski resorts in Japan, not to mention Europe & North America. I’ll be willing to try the rest of the Kagura Ski resort tho, but I’ll probably just stay in the hotels in that area instead of Naeba Prince Hotel.
Looking forward to my skiing journey for the rest of my life!