Hakuba

Hakuba sits in a great glacial valley beneath the Northern Japan Alps, where a string of ski resorts gathers under peaks rising close to three thousand metres. The village hosted events of the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, and something of that quiet pride lingers in its onsen hamlets and farmhouses. Unlike Hokkaido's gentle birch slopes, Hakuba is alpine in the truest sense: long steep faces, cornices catching the first sun, the Shirouma massif turning rose at dusk. Between descents there are temple bells, soba kitchens, and hot springs that have soothed travellers along the old Salt Road for centuries. It is the mountains' Japan, austere and exhilarating.

From Tokyo, the most graceful approach is by road: your FFGR chauffeur collects you at your residence or hotel and follows the Chūō and Nagano expressways northwest, a journey of around three and a half hours, with a pause, should you wish, near the lake at Suwa. Alternatively, the Hokuriku Shinkansen reaches Nagano in well under two hours, where a Toyota Century or Lexus LM waits to carry you the final hour into the valley. In winter the vehicle is prepared with snow tyres and chains; in every season the chauffeur is white-gloved, discreet, and acquainted with each resort's quietest entrance.

Base yourself at Happo-One, the valley's grandest mountain, where January and February deliver consistently deep snow and views across the entire range. The Hakuba Tokyu Hotel remains the village's stately address; for something more secluded, the chalets above the Wadano forest offer ski-in privacy among the cedars. Off the slopes, the snow monkeys of Jigokudani bathe in their steaming pools an hour away, and Zenkō-ji temple in Nagano rewards a contemplative afternoon. Come October, the autumn colour descends the peaks in bands of crimson and gold, and Happo Pond mirrors it all. Hakuba asks little of its guests except attention; FFGR attends to everything else.