The Oze Tokura Snow park is located closest to the Oze National Park and welcomes you with their mascot of a green bear. It is a relatively small ski resort but offers slopes for various levels ranging from beginners to intermediate to advanced skiers and snowboarders.
It purposely has a remote slope of 298m that is only for beginners. It is a safe place to stand on the skis/board for the first time without any one whizzing past. Overall, there are 6 chair lifts leading to 11 different slopes. A plus point is that the chair lifts are very fast and also we did not have to wait in any queues. Therefore spending more time racing down the pistes than standing around in the queues!
The steepest piste has a maximum slope of 21.1° so it may be not the most challenging ski area for some of you. Nonetheless, Tokura is one of Katashina’s 3 ski parks that has a terrain (progression) park. The park is relatively empty so you have enough space and time to practise your tricks and jumps.
On top of that, Tokura also offers special lessons to improve your snowboarding, freeskiing/newschool skiing tricks.These are group classes either 2 hours (¥4,500) or 4 hours long (¥8,000). More information to be found on http://riderstyle.com/ or 080-3533-5457.
High Five Mountain Works offers a course where Numano-san takes you off piste and through the deep powdery snow. This is the same instructor that offers stand-up-paddling (SUP) on Sugenuma during the summer. So I am sure that this snow adventure should be very fun!
Have a look at his website: http://highfive-mountainworks.com/sup/index.html
Read about my summer SUP experience with Numano-san by clicking on the image below:
Furthermore, we saw a lot of skiers that were practising their racing skills as well as there slalom performance. Tokura additionally offers racing competitions as well as racing lessons. The classes are either half a day (¥4,000) or a whole day (¥6,000). Check http://plus-up-racing.com/ for more information.
Fees for Day Pass (given in Japanese Yen [¥])
Adults
>60 years
1 Day Pass (weekend) 4,400 3,150 2,620
1 Day Pass (weekday) 3,670 3,150 2,620
2 Day Pass (weekend) 7,450 – –
2 Day Pass (weekday) 6,300 – –
Morning Pass Weekend (8:00-12:00) 3,360 – 2,520
Morning Pass Weekday (8:00-12:00) 2,620 – 2,410
Evening Pass Weekend (12:00-17:00) 3,880 – –
Evening Pass Weekday (12:00-17:00) 3,150 – –
Check out Oze Tokura’s special deals:
Ladies are free on Fridays from the 9th of January until the 27th of March 2015
Children are free on the 24th and 25th of January, 21st and 22nd of February and 28th and 29th of March (2015)
If you go to Oze Tokura on your Birthday you also get to go on the pistes for free
Furthermore, Tokura Snow park also hosts various events for example mochi-tsuki (01.01), a costume competition (05.04), a curry eating competition and tug of war…
Click on the thumbnail to read more about the new years tradition mochi-tsuki (making rice cakes) & everything around it:
1 Day Rental Prices for Skiing/Snowboarding Equipment given in Japanese Yen (¥)
Full Ski Set (skis, boots and poles)
3,500
Skis
3,000
Ski Boots
1,500
Ski Poles
500
Full Snowboard Set (board and boots)
3,500
Snowboard
3,000
Snowboard Boots
1,500
Jacket and trousers
2,500
At the top of the slope is a curry house that is quiet and has a great view over the centre of Katashina surrounded by the mountains.
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