Years ago, when I wrote this review, it started “Furano is steadily building a reputation as the next big destination for foreign skiers in Hokkaido”. Well that reputation has been well and truly established. Furano is now a major destination for international skiers, with all the good and bad that brings.

There’s a lot to like about Furano. It has good lift infrastructure, a variety of terrain, and a fun village right at the base of the lifts, and sheltered tree skiing down low that works well in bad weather.

If you’re resort skiing, it’s also the best base for a trip to central Hokkaido. It’s day-trippable to Tomamu, Asahidake, Kamui, Sahoro, and the Tokachidake area. But the region is in the rainshadow of the Yubari mountains and gets a bit over half then annual snowfall of the major resorts near Niseko and Otaru. Now that it’s busy, a dry spell in Furano can be rough on those who have locked in a week of accommodation and lift passes with no transport to chase better conditions.

The skiing

Furano has some of the better lift accessed terrain in Hokkaido. In general, Japanese ski infrastructure was built for skiing groomers first, with powder skiing an afterthought. But Furano works better than most at getting you to or bootpackably-close-to fun terrain with reasonable exits back to the lifts. There’s good tree skiing with decent fall lines and the option for some touring from the lifts. Plus there’s decent tree skiing down low so the resort is still fun in bad weather when winds close the upper lifts.

Here’s the catch: Furano faces east and is the rain-shadow of the Yubari mountains, so it gets less snow than other areas, with around 7-8m a season compared to the 15 metres commonly recorded at Rusutsu or Asahidake. The advertising brochures will assure you that this is OK because the snow is drier and lighter than the more maritime snowpack that forms elsewhere. Blower pow is certainly great, but the biggest strength of skiing in Hokkaido is that it’s consistent. If you’ve only got time for a 10 day trip, Hokkaido is one of the safest bets in the world for powder. A bad season at a resort that gets 15m still has a lot of powder days. A bad season at a resort that gets 8m can be pretty grim.

To make matters worse, Furano has become pretty busy since borders reopened in 2022. With more international skiers and more established entries and exits to the lift-accesssed backcountry the resort tracks out pretty quickly, which means that your opportunities for untracked powder are getting squeezed at both ends.

The worst way to experience Furano is to be locked in to fixed accommodation and lift passes with no transport. With Tomamu, Asahidake, Kamui, Sahoro, and the Tokachidake area nearby there’s likely to be good snow somewhere, but you’ll need a way to get around and there’s no reliable public transport yet.

I don’t want to paint an unnecessarily grim portrait of Furano. I’ve had some great days here (although they were all about ten years ago…). Lots of people go there and have a good time. With any luck you’ll ski some decent powder laps there. But if you’re looking for day after day of untracked deep powder this probably isn’t the place to go. In fact short of a miracle, no resort is going to provide that. You’ll have to go somewhere without so many international skiers, and you’ll have to walk.

For many years Furano had a strictly enforced ban on tree skiing. They’ve now switched to a gate system similar to Niseko where they close access to the backcountry after new snow, and open it when patrol is happy that the snow has settled. Be aware that this is not an avalanche control program as we would understand it in the US/Canada/Europe/NZ. There is no avalanche control here, and there are lots and lots of terrain traps. Trees! Gullies! Hollows! Creeks! Everything you need to turn a small slide into a very serious accident. Treat the backcountry here with respect and don’t assume that anyone else knows what they’re doing. Once you go off the groomers you are very much on your own.

The resort is divided into two parts, the Kitanomine Zone near the main ski village area, and the Furano zone next to the New Prince Hotel. There’s sidecountry on either side of the resort and in the area between the two zones. Skier’s right of the resort offers a variety of reasonably sustained lines which drop into a drainage. There’s a fairly sporting goat-track running along the drainage that passes a large concrete dam and returns you to the lifts at the base of the Furano zone. Skier’s left has some sheltered gullies, but many of these drop away from the ski field and so you need to exit pretty early to return to the lifts.

The real gem of Furano’s sidecountry is between the two zones. The easiest access is from the top of the Link Chair, and you can drop any of the gullies below the lift station and return to the lifts – some funnel back to the Kitanomine zone, while others come out near the Furano zone gondola. Better yet, you can get to this terrain using the Link Chair or the Furano gondola, which both tend to run in low wind. There’s also some nice lines above the Link Chair that you can access by hiking the ridge from the top of the lifts. This terrain is pretty avalanche prone and a slide here could endanger skiers on the runs below you, so you need to be extra careful. Endangering yourself is pretty dumb, but killing other people is not cool. If you don’t have avalanche education and plenty of experience, just ride somewhere else.

The evenings

You’ve got two options when it comes to eating, relaxing and sleeping in Furano. You can stay in downtown Furano, which is a bustling agricultural centre of around 24,000 people, or the ski village, a collection of hotels, pensions, bars and restaurants on the edge of town near the lifts. The ski village is much more convenient for tourists: It’s close to the lifts, has plenty of restaurants and bars, and staff tend to speak more English. Winter tourism is booming but Furano’s main tourist market is still visitors coming in the summer, so there are still some places that speak little to no English. The split layout between downtown and the ski village can make the town feel a bit sleepy, but there’s actually plenty going on and it hasn’t yet reached the level of madness that often accompanies international ski tourism.

I used to have hotel recommendations for Furano but the little family run pensions have mostly been knocked down to make way for bigger developments focused on international tourists. My one word of advice would be to check the location of any hotel before you book it. There are a handful of bigger, somewhat soulless hotels that are off to the side of the ski village and even though there are shuttle buses it’s a hassle getting away from the hotel at night. Either stay at the base of the ski area for maximum ski convenience and then taxi into town for food and entertainment, or stay in town to walk to dinner and taxi to the hill. Or, better yet, have your own car so you can get to the other resorts in the area.