The Skiing
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The Anaba Lodge was founded by Japan Ski Tours, a ski guiding operator in the region since 2017. During the winter of 2020/2021, we spent a whole winter skiing nothing but the area around Ani and Mt. Moriyoshi to fully explore what the area had to offer, suspecting that it might be an overlooked pow-zone. Our suspicions were correct, although we concurrently discovered that all of the best skiing required a bit of effort to get in and out of--a hurdle which would keep others from entering our zone :).
In our 2 month period of exploration, we found an abundance of perfectly spaced trees, lots of pow and a great car-lap zone at an abandoned resort accessible from the top of the Ani Gondola. Most people never explore beyond the Ani Gondola because its usually socked-in and its hard to know where to go, but for those willing to put in a bit of effort, we discovered that Ani will reward handsomely and with zero competition! |
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The trees
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Backcountry skiing
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There is much, much more skiing at Ani than most people realize. Here's a selection of photos that show what type of pow zone is on offer here. Of course, at Ani, no great runs come without putting in at least a bit of effort. If you love traipsing around mountains and getting perfect turns in nicely spaced trees with no one around, this is the spot!
The Anaba staff can support car-lap pickups as well! There are no restrictions or regulations on off-piste skiing at Ani. |
The Ski Resort
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Ani is a classic Japanese ski resort in that its extremely understated. In fact, when the Japan Ski Tours team started coming here here in 2019, it wasn't even listed on Google Maps and its website was in an unsearchable PDF format! While the main event is touring, the resort offers a days worth of nice easy-access pow skiing, although even that does require a bit of effort to maximize your day!
There are descent groomers for the non-pow day as the resort as a gondola and two double lifts. What to do when the gondola is closed? When the gondola is closed due to high winds, they usually run a Snow Cat to the summit for a very nominal fee. Please check with Anaba Lodge staff to see if the Cat is running as sometimes they remove the passenger box to safe fuel costs. |
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Snow Monsters
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Ani is home to one of the three locations in Japan that have lift accessed-snow monsters available to hang out with. But, like most things at Ani, you'll need to put in a bit of effort to get there! The gondola reaches the edge of the snow monster field; from there you can borrow snow shoes (for free!) and walk around the "snow monster route" which is an established and maintained snow monster viewing area. The snow monsters extend well beyond the officially designated "snow monster zone" but most poeple who are into snow monsters are pretty happy walking around the official area.
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This is a good shot of the snow monster zone, courtesy of the ski resort drone team.
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