Your Travel Experience with ARRIVAL
Day 1
ARRIVAL
Land, transfer in, and settle into Butter Inn. There’s no skiing today, just enough time to get your bearings, sort your gear, and slide into mountain mode. Butter Inn is set up as a fully self-contained house with lounge, fireplace, kitchen, and dry room, so it feels more like moving in with a snow-loving friend than checking into something sterile. Tonight is Movie Night in the leisure room: guests only, low pressure, and a very solid way to ease into the week.
Day 1 - 7
Five-Day Hakuba Valley Ski Pass
Ten resorts, one pass and the freedom to ski wherever the snow is best each day. Happo-One for long cruising runs and Olympic-grade terrain. Cortina for deep tree runs and serious powder, and conveniently, Norikura connects directly to Cortina so you can link them without ever getting on a shuttle. Hakuba 47 and Goryu for variety and vertical. Iwatake for quieter runs and panoramic views. The pass works across all of it. Use your five days however you want, in whatever order makes sense when you wake up and check the conditions. Your QR code arrives 30 days before check-in. Everything else is up to you and the crew you’ve joined for the day.
Day 1 - 8
Butter Inn Hakuba
Butter Inn is not your average ski base. It's a fully self-contained house that sleeps up to twenty people, a hundred metres from the lifts at Norikura and built around the idea that the best ski weeks are the ones where the mountain is just the beginning. The common spaces are where the magic happens. A large lounge with big comfortable couches, a fireplace that stays lit and a projector for the nights when nobody wants to move. A full kitchen and dining area where guests cook and eat. A drying room to keep your gear ready for tomorrow. A tuning area to keep your edges sharp. A putting green for the afternoons when the legs need a rest.
Choose your room based on how you're travelling and how social you want to be.
Day 1
Movie Night Every Saturday
The leisure room, the projector, the couch and whatever gets voted on by the house. Guests only, which means it's always the right crowd.
Day 2
Salsa Sunday Every Sunday
Close the week the way it deserves to be closed. Salsa Sunday is exactly what it sounds like and significantly more fun than you'd expect from a ski lodge in the Japanese Alps. No experience required.
Day 3
Trivia Night Every Monday
Kick off the week the right way. Teams form fast at Butter Inn and the competition gets surprisingly serious by round three. The best way to get to know everyone in the house in one sitting
Day 4
Taco and Live Music Tuesday Every Tuesday
Tacos, live music… say less. One of the most popular nights of the week at Butter Inn and a reliable reason to get back from the mountain at a reasonable hour.
Day 5
Bingo Night Every Wednesday
Don't knock it until you've played bingo in a ski lodge in Japan surrounded by people you met three days ago. Somehow always a highlight.
Day 6
Pool Competition Every Thursday
Eight ball, house rules and whatever side bets get arranged between runs.
Day 7
Margarita Après Every Friday
The best night of the week. Margaritas at ¥500 with a food purchase, live music and the full energy of a house that's been skiing together all week. This is the night that runs longest. Start early.
Day 1 - 7
Exploring Hakuba Village (encouraged)
Off the mountain, Hakuba's village has everything you need and nothing that feels unnecessary. Convenience stores stocked better than most supermarkets. Ramen spots with six seats and a chef who's been making the same broth for twenty years. Izakayas where you point at things and they're always good. A few bars that get livelier than they look from the outside. Solo or in a group, wander without a plan and something good will find you.
Onsen Sessions (encouraged)
After back-to-back powder days your legs will tell you it's time. Hakuba has several onsens within easy reach: some rustic, some resort-style, all of them worth the visit. Slide into water hot enough to revive your body for the next day, stare at the steam rising into the cold mountain air. You’ll soon come to realise, this is a snow trip done right. One of the non-negotiable parts of any Japan ski week.
Day 8
Departure
No skiing today. Pack it up, return the room to some version of respectability, and head out of Hakuba with tired legs and a suspiciously strong emotional attachment to the week you just had. Butter Inn includes pick-up and drop-off around arrival and departure, which helps smooth the edges off the final morning. Then it’s back to reality, which frankly has a lot to live up to