Earlier this week, I went on a skiing day trip from Tokyo. Something I honestly had not realized was possible. We have firm intentions to do some longer ski trips with the kids in the weeks ahead. But with the ability to do this (schedule and logistics-wise), and an eagerness to shake out some knee pain to make sure skiing wasn’t going to be a problem, I gave this a go.
JR Ski Ski is a promotion that JR (the umbrella term for the collection of major de-nationalized rail companies) has to get people out to the slopes at local ski resorts. I chose to do a day at Gala Yuzawa, which is a resort which is clearly set up mainly for day trippers from Tokyo. From Tokyo station, it was a 75 minute shinkansen trip. More to the point, the building at the mountain housing the Shinkansen station doubles as the base for the resort, containing lift ticket sales, ski rentals, ski wear rental if you need it, changing rooms, lockers, and the base station for the gondola up the mountain. So yep, you can walk off the train and into the gondola without leaving the building at all. Even taking a bit of time and needing to navigate a bit of confusion, I went from train to slopes in a little over 30 minutes.
Gala Yuzawa isn’t the biggest of resorts, either in acreage or in vertical. And several of the more challenging trails, several were closed for avalanche control, so my options were a bit limited. But, on a random weekday in late January, the lift lines were minimal, the weather was gorgeous, the snow was great, and the opportunity to do this with such ease was amazing. I was able to confirm that I didn’t have any physical limitations (building confidence for a bigger trip in a couple of weeks) and able to have a nice day out on the slopes. The short vertical also meant I hit what was undoubtedly a record for most individual runs on a day, going on a Ski Tracks- / Strava-tracked 37 total runs for 6.7 or 7.1km in total vertical (depending on the app). If you’re a beginner or intermediate level skier, this would be an amazingly easy-to-get-to and satisfying way to get onto the slopes. I was out the door of our apartment in the middle of the biggest metropolis on the planet at 5:30 AM and back home by 7 PM, with over 7 hours on the mountain.
Furthermore, it was shockingly inexpensive. I wasn’t able to fully take advantage of the JR Ski Ski promotion, lacking a local Japanese credit card. But if I had been able to do so, I could have done the full day, including train, lift tickets, and ski rentals, for about £75. As it was, it still came in as a full day of skiing, all in, at just over £100. That is pretty hard to beat.
do you really need a local credit card to avail jr skiski?