Rutusu, Japan - Feb 2023

It's not the largest ski area but coupled with the right snow conditions, it's perfect for several days (maybe a week?) with the family. There's only a handful of restaurants outside the resort nearby, so you will either need to make due with the resort/hotel, or have a rental car to venture out (10-15 min drive will open up more possibilities). But for a couple of days, the restaurants within resort are pretty good!

Alternatively, it could be a fun day trip if you are staying in Niseko.

Transporation

We rented a car for this trip. It will require a shuttle ride from the airport to the rental office, which is somewhat inconvenient. If you are only planning on staying within resort bounds, I do not recommend renting a car. However, a car is convenient if you want to travel between Rutusu, Niseko, and surrounding areas.

On our drive up, it started to snow pretty hard. I must have driven at ~20 km/hour, given the car I was driving did not have snow chains or 4WD. Not the most relaxing way to get there.

When to go

The snow conditions were absolutely amazing the week we were there.

Snow conditions by month:

Source: https://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/RusutsuResort/history

Accommodations

We stayed at the https://rusutsu.com/en/rusutsu-resort-hotel-and-convention/. Rutusu has several other hotels (including a Westin) and some houses nearby for rent as well. Just keep in mind getting from the Westin side to the Rutusu Resort Hotel side is not very convenient.

Rutusu Resort Hotel:

Pros: ski in/out, nice outdoor onsen, food quality pretty good.

Cons: the layout of the hotel is somewhat odd, leading to a learning curve on how to get around. Much of the staff could not speak any English, including the ski rental staff. This is surprising given half or more of the customers there were non-Japanese.

Guides/schools/rentals

We found th Rutusu Resort Hotel's children's ski school to be pretty disappointing. The progression is very slow. Given you are blessed with powder snow, you would think they start the kids off in the snow. But instead, they have the kids practice indoors in a artifical ski slope!

Once we moved our kids to private instructors (they were from Australia I believe), our kids progressed super fast and had a blast. Within 1 day of instruction, the 5 and 7 yr olds could take the ski lift up and ski down greens.

Tips/Resources

• The buffet is a much better deal then the restaurants when it comes to seafood. The snow crab at the buffet was better quality than the a la carte snow crab, and it was all you can eat!

• I would not recommend the Chinese restaurant breakfast. The Japanese restaurant is much better. However, there will be a line in the morning if you are trying to catch first tracks, so have someone in your party get in line.

Pictures/Video