Hmm, Furano hatchet job there
@Any. And very incorrect. Although certainly agree that Niseko gets more snow, closer to the coast and not as dry as Furano.
Just to set the record straight, Furano Gondi always opens late November, every year I have lived and worked there (since the 80's). Kittanomine always later, usually 20 December, which means we use it as a private backcountry run till the lifts turn. It has never been delayed to January. Xmas new year always fully open and January no problems with snow depths for full mountain and off piste skiing. Of course there can be anomalies like anywhere in Japan but no reason to delay skiing Furano more than anywhere else. Quote "When they close it (in March) you have been skiing grass for a week or two". That is utter nonsense. Again, I love it when the Kitanomine side closes as we get weeks of BC on the Kittanomine side. The Furano Gondola stays open for skiing right through to golden week, and is one of a handful of lifts at Japanese ski resorts to be still be open for skiing then.
Both Prince hotels (who own the resort) and local town run shuttle bus services between Kittanomine, Furano gondola and the town. Expensive? No more than any other ski resort, with options at all ends of the budget spectrum for accommodation.
Japan has great skiing, from down south in the Japan Alps to the far north. Niseko offers a great ski product as does Furano, Rusutsu, Teine, Tomamu and other great ski areas in Hokkaido. I recommend people look to factual information on snow and lift data at sites like SnowJapan.com etc. There is no need for anyone to be bagging resort areas that they hardly know to boost the area they do know. It happens too often in here. IMO you should celebrate what is great about the area you know well and don't bag the areas you don't. That way skiers looking for information on this site won't be mislead.
Before commenting I checked snowfall data, bus information, accommodation prices and lift opening and closing dates.
You'd be surprised to hear that Furano gets almost identical snowfall totals on average to Niseko (within an acceptable margin of error), however it's the average base depth data that is very different. The significantly drier snow means it compacts down a whole bunch more. 30-40% more according to the stats I found for the last 10 years. I
For this thread in particular I compared Niseko Dec 24 average base to Furano and it didn't consistently equalling that same base until February. Considering that Niseko slack country is at about 30% capacity at that same base I reasoned that Furano is about the same. You could argue that Furano has different foliage, tho not in my experience.
While Furano has some of the driest pow in the world, this has a negative side to it also. You can't have everything.
This is why I visit Furano in February now instead of January, where when I couldn't do things like the spillway earlier into the season, usually I now almost always find 100% slack and backcountry available to ski with almost no sasa.
I checked Furanos own website regarding the Kitanomine gondola which said late December/January and another Japanese website that proports to have recorded the open close dates for several of seasons (that stopped recording like 5 years ago) that recorded dates in January also.
I've only skied Furano about 4 times in March, and every time we found ourselves on grass and sludge at the bottom of the gondola, they run it to the last second that you could make it through.
I reasoned that there's probably similar conditions upon its opening, which every resort around the world does to get most terrain.
Thankyou for answering the question regarding shuttle busses, I assumed so but couldn't immediately find any difinitive info so I didn't want to say there is.
Furano is cheaper than Hirafu, but significantly more expensive than Kutchan.
As Furano base is 5 minutes drive from town. And Hurafu base is 8 minutes drive from Kutchan, I find it surprising to find Furano charging high rates for non ski in ski out accom. Perhaps I should have clarified my comparison.
I don't actually know about Kitanomine prices.
My goal is to make informed suggestions for a month long holiday in late dec early jan. I resent the personal stab that my efforts aren't honorable.
I mentioned biases before, which I fully admit to, however being aware of ones biases is even more important. It hurts to hear negative comments about your favorite resort, truthful or otherwise, welcome to the ski.com.au forums with the eyes of a Niseko resident. But Ill not color it rose or gloss over what I think are important details to avoid hurting someone's feelings and steer people incorrectly based on the information I have at hand.