Okushiga Kogen: the high, quiet corner of Shiga Kogen

Shiga Kogen sells itself as Japan's biggest linked ski area, eighteen resorts on one pass. In practice, getting between them means a lot of cat tracks. The connectors between the peaks are short, winding and, on a snowboard, a chore.

The part that is worth the trip out is the far northern end: Okushiga Kogen and Yakebitaiyama, a pair of proper resorts sharing their own high peak, well away from the busy middle of the valley. The base here sits at 1,473m, above the top of a lot of Japanese resorts, and the summit is 2,000m. That height is the whole point. It keeps the snow cold and dry when the rest of Nagano is getting rained on, and it is why this corner is still skiing into Golden Week, in early May, when almost everywhere else has shut.

Okushiga and Yakebitaiyama

Treat these two as a self-contained resort and ignore the rest of Shiga Kogen unless you have a reason. They connect to each other and to the two small Ichinose areas without the tunnels and pushing that link the central peaks, so you can ski both all day and never touch a cat track.

The main lift is the Okushiga Kogen Gondola, around six minutes to the top, with fast pair lifts off it. Most of what's here suits an easy-going intermediate: long reds far outnumber the short blacks, and only a small slice of the terrain is genuinely beginner ground. For a first go at tree skiing, the Forest Course beside the piste is the right place: mellow, well spaced, with a flat lower section aimed at children. The better lines are on Yakebitaiyama, in the corner between the Shirakaba and Buna trails, which is a nuisance to lap and served by a lift that shuts early, so the snow there keeps. Both areas are relaxed about the trees, but if you do not know the ground, take a guide.

The rest of Shiga Kogen

Skiing all eighteen areas in a day sounds impressive on paper, but most of it goes on getting between them rather than skiing: short, fiddly links, long cat-track pushes, and Ichinose Family, sitting at the hub of the whole system, thick with beginners who don't always hold a line. The 1998 Olympic slalom and giant slalom courses are still drawn on the map, through Takamagahara Mammoth and Hoppo Bunadaira, but it has been chopped into narrow traverses and skis nothing like a race course. The terrain here is obviously too much for a lot of the people who come through and it still causes pile-ups on the corners.

The one part of central Shiga worth the trip is Nishitateyama: the Giant course and the World Cup course next to it. Giant is not long, but it is wide and steep the whole way, the best pitch of pisted snow in Shiga Kogen. From the chair you can watch people fall near the top and slide the rest of it, unable to stop, which keeps it quiet.

Snow, and skiing in April

Okushiga doesn't make snow, and doesn't need to. The height keeps what falls dry, and it averages around 12 metres a season. Where that really shows is in spring. In April, when lower resorts are getting sun, rain and slush by lunchtime, the peak usually stays cold. In late March it can be snowing up here while it rains across most of Nagano.

For a late-season trip the move is to base high, at Okushiga or nearby Yokoteyama, and lap one gondola rather than chase the connections around a softening valley. Ski the morning while it holds, then come down for something else in the afternoon.

The Okushiga Kogen Hotel

The hotel is a large part of why you would come. It is genuinely ski-in ski-out, to the point that you can ski up to the locker room on the second floor, which puts you on the snow before the crowd has finished riding up. Nothing about the decor has chased any trend since it opened, and it is better for it: a bar under the pitched roof with a view over the runs, and, unusually, baths and a sauna filled with filtered stream water off Mount Yakebitai rather than volcanic hot-spring water, very clean and soft.

You get a choice of three restaurants for dinner, French, Japanese kaiseki-style, and teppanyaki, all folded into the room rate, and the Japanese option in particular is a proper multi-course meal. The vending machines in the corridor still charge normal convenience-store prices for beer rather than the inflated rates you find once a resort has gone fully after the tourist dollar. For lunch, Restaurant St Christoph near the base does ramen and curry, and the Hotel Grand Phoenix has more.

The feel

Okushiga has barely changed in decades and does not want to. No late bars, no music, no scene. The evening is a good meal and a drink where you are staying. It is a quieter, more European way to ski in Japan than Niseko or Hakuba.

Need to know

Lift pass

One Shiga Kogen all-area pass covers all eighteen areas. On the Ikon Pass for seven days, or five on Ikon Base, no blackouts.

Season

Among the longest in Japan. Okushiga and Yakebitaiyama usually run into Golden Week, early May.

Getting there

Shinkansen Tokyo to Nagano, about 90 minutes, then an hour by bus or car up the mountain. All-wheel drive and winter tyres if driving; the roads can be bad.

Rental

At the Okushiga Kogen Hotel or the ski-area base.

Where to stay

The Okushiga Kogen Hotel for true ski-in ski-out; the wider Shiga Kogen valley for more and cheaper options.