Ride Hokkaido maps the island for people who travel to ride it

Who writes it

Adam Bognar edits Ride Hokkaido. He is a snowboarder and designer who runs The Still, a brand studio in Vancouver, and he started the site while planning his own riding trips to Hokkaido. Write to him through adambognar.com.

How we build it

The guide currently covers 38 ski areas, 25 touring zones, 36 onsen, 64 places to stay and 28 towns. Every page lists its sources and the month we last checked them.

Facts come from each resort's, operator's and town's own published pages, the Niseko Avalanche Institute and Japan Avalanche Network bulletins, the Japan Meteorological Agency and established guide companies.

Run statistics are our own measurements. We take each run's line from OpenStreetMap and sample AWS Terrain Tiles elevation data along it every 20 m, which gives length, vertical drop, average and steepest pitch, and the direction the run faces. The steepest figure is the hardest 60 m section. The 3D maps and the contour plates are drawn from the same data.

Research is compiled from published sources with help from AI research tools, then checked and edited. When a page describes riding a mountain, it draws on those sources and on guides who work there.

We say when a figure is the resort's own and when it is ours, and we leave a field blank rather than guess.

Photographs

Photos come from photographers who publish under open licences on Unsplash, Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, credited by name with their licence beside each image. Where a resort or hotel provides press images, we credit them as theirs. The full list is on the credits page.

How the site makes money

Some booking links pay us a commission when you book a stay, a tour or a car through them. They're marked and cost you nothing extra. The same places appear whether or not a partner pays us, and no business can pay to change a rating. How the links work.

Corrections

Hokkaido changes from one season to the next, and a volcano can close a road overnight. If something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it and date the change.