white-hot

Japan is a white-hot playground for ski bunnies, writes Lonely Planet.

Japan's best ski resorts are found in the Japanese alps region of Central Honshu (mostly in Nagano and Niigata prefectures) and on the northern island of Hokkaido.

The former lays claim to the highest mountains, while the latter has the deepest and most regular snow. Both regions offer first-class skiing.

If you're interested in doing some sightseeing in cities such as Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo in addition to your skiing, you might consider hitting the resorts in the Japanese alps. If skiing is your main goal, then Hokkaido might be the way to go (although, to be fair, the difference is really only one quick internal flight).

What follows is our very biased list of the five best ski areas in Japan.
This is just to whet your appetite - there are more than 600 that haven't been mentioned here.

Niseko: As far as most Australian skiers are concerned, "Niseko" is how you say powder in Japanese. This is understandable, since Niseko receives an average of 13m of snow annually.

Happo-one: Nagano-ken's Happo-one (hah poh oh nay) is the quintessential Japanese alps ski resort. With the sprawling Hakuba mountain range as a backdrop, it offers eye-popping views along with excellent and varied skiing.

Shiga Kogen: Also in Nagano-ken, Shiga Kogen is the world's largest ski area, with an incredible 21 different interlinked areas, all connected by trails and lifts and accessible with one lift ticket.

Nozawa/Onsen: This quaint ski resort/village tucked high up in Nagano-ken is the closest thing you'll find to Switzerland in Japan.

Rusutsu: Hokkaido's Rusutsu is luring skiers away from super popular Niseko. Rusutsu gets regular dumps of deep powder snow like Niseko, and allows skiers and boarders to enjoy it on piste and off piste (there are some great tree runs and the management doesn't try to prevent you from enjoying it).

'MX' 28/4/09