Resort overview

High1 Ski Resort has one of the best snowfall records in Korea, so it gives more natural and puffy snow compare to other Korean hills. It is located in the Gangwon Province and is easily accessible from Sabok or Gohan station (free shuttle bus services!). There are 18 runs and 21 km of slopes available with 6 chair lifts and 3 gondolas. The two main bases – Mountain Ski House and Valley Condominium provide ski equipment and clothing rental, ticket office, cafeteria, and ski lessons booking.

How to get there

Although the resort is quite far from Incheon Airport, there is a Taebaek Bus that takes you from the airport to Gohan Station (Shigohan Terminal), then you can take a free ski shuttle bus to High1 Ski Resort. The journey takes around 4 hours. From Seoul, there is a bus from Dong Seoul Bus Terminal and it takes around 3 hours. If you are travelling during peak season, ticket reservation is a must because there are not a lot of seats per bus.

Bus timetable and information:

https://www.high1.com/eng/roadMapGuide/html.high1

Ski Shuttle information:

https://www.high1.com/eng/high1/download/Traffic_Guide_Download.pdf

Accommodations

I stayed at Kangwonland hotel which is a 5 minute bus ride from Mountain ski house base. The hotel offers ski package –  540,000KRW for 2 nights, including breakfasts for 2 mornings, ski equipment rental and ski lift passes for 3 days for 2 person. The breakfast they serve is a buffet with both Western and Korean choices. I am very satisfied with the breakfast as there are plenty of options and it gave me enough energy to ski for the entire day. A good breakfast is very important as the food choices on the slope are limited. The hotel is massive and they even have a casino.  Overall, I enjoyed the stay very much because the room is decent and the shuttle bus to the slope is very convenient. The only downside is they do not have ski storage and we kind of smuggled our ski equipment into our room. There are ski racks in the ski slope base but it doesn’t look too safe to me.

If you want to opt out for the bus journey ie. Ski-to-door, you have 3 other options: Mountain Condominium, Valley Condominium, and High1 Hotel. They offer various ski packages for foreigners as well.

Ski Slope

What’s good?

Very good night ski

I was impressed by the night ski because it gets less crowded. Despite that, there are still a lot of ski patrols on duty to make sure everyone is safe. Also, the vibe is very chill at night as the music will be turned on.

Good deal for foreigners

As a foreigner, you get a lot of discounts such as ski lessons, ski rentals, ski lifts, so do remember to bring your passport along with you!

Never get bored

The ski resort has abundant of tracks especially for beginners, they have very very long beginner runs. They have a lot of choices for advanced people too, but shorter runs, however, the lengthy green track is perfect for snowboarders to practice tricks.

Professional first aid and ski patrol team

There are plenty of ski patrols on slope and very professional first aid service. You will feel safe on the slope!

What’s not as good?

Not a lot of powder

Despite being the highest elevated ski resort, the powder level is quite low because of the wind. They have snow machine to keep the snow level high but you might hear the friction between the ground and your board/skis when it gets windy. It can be quite dangerous and it is highly recommend to do safety precautions such as wearing helmets and knee pads.

No ski storage in hotel

There are ski racks and lockers in two of the bases but you have to pay extra to rent the lockers overnight.

Slow ski lifts

Because of the long runs, the time it takes for you to get to the top took us forever!! It feels like the ski lifts are slower than the normal ones that I’ve seen in other ski resorts. It gets really cold at night and you’ll freeze on the ski lifts because it takes around 30 minutes to get to the top.

English information limited

The staff cannot really speak good English, therefore it is quite hard to communicate. I was trying to ask whether the terrain park is open or not but they have no clue what I was talking about. But other than that, ski rentals and bus information are quite straight forward.