용평리조트

Zao Onsen offers something no other ski resort on Earth quite matches: in deep winter, the fir trees along its upper mountain vanish beneath layer after layer of rime ice and wind-driven snow until they become juhyō — 'snow monsters' — a summit forest of hulking white figures that you ski between, and that glow under coloured floodlights at night. The phenomenon peaks in February and draws visitors from around the world.

The village below is one of Japan's oldest hot-spring settlements, its discovery dated by tradition to the second century AD. Steam rises between ryokan roofs, the streets smell faintly of sulfur, and the milky, strongly acidic waters of its public baths have been easing muscles for centuries — the perfect counterpart to a cold Tōhoku ski day.

The skiing itself is old-school Japan: a sprawling web of ropeways and courses down the flank of the Zao range, long meandering descents (the top-to-bottom stretches close to 9 km), and a pace that favours atmosphere over adrenaline. You come to Zao for the monsters, the baths and the feeling of skiing inside a woodblock print.