Naeba (Mt. Naeba)

The Dragondola is the headline: Japan's longest gondola carries you over to Kagura, Mitsumata and Tashiro, which sit higher, hold better snow and are far emptier - reviewers describe runs where they met nobody at all. The ski-in hotel with its hot baths and long list of restaurants is popular, as are the wide gentle slopes at the bottom for beginners, the steeper upper mountain and the terrain parks.

Crowds are the recurring gripe. The pistes right in front of the hotel get packed, weekend lift lines stretch past half an hour, and there are queues for rental and for lunch on top of that. Snow on the Naeba side is often hard and icy, and the contrast with Kagura is obvious. Lifts do not always run, the Dragondola has closed for weather and thin cover, and the link between the areas is flat and partly uphill, so snowboarders end up unstrapping. The hotel is widely called tired.