New Japan Multi-Resort Lift Pass Joins The Party – The Snow Chasers Pass
Mountainwatch | News
So you’ve heard of the Epic Pass, you know about the Ikon Pass and the Mountain Collective Pass and if you’re really across the multi-resort-season-ski-pass-arms-race of the past few years, you might have even heard of the Powder Alliance Pass or the new European Snow Pass.
The first few are truly global, multi-billion dollar operations and happen to encapsulate around half of Australia’s ski resorts as of this year, the latter lesser-known Alliance Pass has a lot of the Western United States covered and as for Europe, well that’s an entirely different animal…
However, no such pass has emerged to cater to a little country with A LOT of powder and over 500+ individual ski resorts. Yep, we’re talking about Japan!
As we waited and watched the Epic pass claim resorts like Rusutsu and the Ikon pass apply to Niseko, we couldn’t help but think how, although this gave Perisher folk or Thredbo locals access to world-class powder. It pigeon-holed them there and perhaps discouraged further exploration of Japan’s many and lesser-known ski resorts.
Long story short we took matters into our own hands and have come up with…
The Snow Chasers Pass.
The Snow Chasers Pass is designed for those who want to base themselves in one place but not necessarily ski there every day. Where in particular you set up camp is entirely up to you – but the current member resorts are in the Niigata/Nagano prefectures, home to the likes of Myoko Kogen and Hakuba.
For this reason, it’s not so much a season pass, as it is a day-pass with more potential. Those spending the season will by definition always look to a conventional season pass. However, those visiting to chase powder for 1, 2 or even 3 weeks are stuck in a lift pass limbo. Such visitors won’t see the value or variety in a season pass, nor should they want to be stuck at one resort on a consecutive day pass, when the resort down the road received double the snow.
The Breakdown:
Price: ¥6000 per day (approximately $80AUD) bought as part of a package through Mountainwatch Travel.
View our Myoko Kogen packages with the Snow Chasers Pass here.
Member Resorts:
- – Four in Myoko Kogen including: Suginahara, Akakura Kanko, Akakura Onsen (both connected resorts covered on same day pass) and Seki Onsen.
- – Madarao Kogen & Tangram (both resorts covered on same day).
- – Nozawa Onsen; and
- – Lotte Arai
The inspiration behind the pass came for the Mountainwatch crew, when we helped produce the video below and guided Red Bull athletes including Michelle Parker & Mark Abma through some of the (now-member) resorts.
Stay tuned for more resort additions to the Snow Chasers Pass.
For information on each individual member resort, check out some of the Mountainwatch Guides below.
Mountainwatch Guide To Shiga Kogen
Mountainwatch Guide To Nozawa Onsen
Definitive Guide To Nozawa Onsen
First Timer’s Guide To Myoko Kogen
