Joyous Harbin III: Fun on Ski: Harbin Yabuli International Ski Resort

In the last article, we have talked about the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, one of the pageants in Harbin in winter. Have you been there? Now, whether you have enjoyed it, there is another entertainment you must can not miss-Harbin Yabuli International Ski Resort.

Chapter Three

   Fun on Ski: Harbin Yabuli International Ski Resort

The Yabuli International Ski Resort, the biggest and best ski resort in China, is 200 kilometers (124 miles) east of Harbin and 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Mudanjiang in Shangzhi City, Heilongjiang Province. 

The resort provides great skiing with high mountains and good snow. Local skiers enjoy the high elevation and the fact that the snow is neither too hard nor too powdery. The lowest temperature is -47.2°F. Because of the high elevation, snow falls for a long period of about 170 days. The period from November to late March of the next year is the best time to ski at Yabuli Ski Resort.

The resort is the biggest training centre for alpine skiers and the mountain hosts of many professional skiing competitions. In 1996 the 3rd Winter Asian Games was held here along with numerous the National Winter Games and other national and provincial competitions.

Yabuli International Ski Resort

The ski resort includes two distinctive areas: the competitive section and the leisure skiing section. The alpine competitive skiing section reaches an altitude of 1,374 meters (approx. 4,508 feet). Built according to international standard, this section provides an excellent environment for professional skiers. In the leisure skiing section, the highest altitude is only about 1,000 meters (approx. 3,281 feet), and the area provides a comparatively safe environment for leisure skiing. 

There is also a German built slide where tourists can enjoy sliding down from the top of the snowy mountain. Doing skiing on the slide is easy and safe, bringing visitors a thrilling experience.

Besides skiing, visitors can also take advantage of the other entertainment facilities at the resort, such as the mini golf course, tennis court, turf courts, hot-air balloons, para-gliders among others. The combination of activities, the beautiful forest and comfortable facilities offer tourists a relaxing and fun vacation. In winter, the ski resort is a fantastic place for skiers; in summer tourists can escape the heat and enjoy fun outdoor activities. All year round the resort offers beautiful scenery.

Xin TiWei Resort

Basically, there are two main resorts worth visiting, Sun Mountain and Xin TiWei. The two mountains are literally side by side, and equally tall, but Sun Mountain is by far the better of the two. Some websites may tell you that TiWei is the best, but this is simply not true. TiWei is considerably cheaper, but you will not regret the extra expense of Sun Mountain.  

Sun Mountain has far better rental equipment, more trails, a better snowboard park, nicer facilities, better service, and better snow. Beginners may saving money at TiWei, but experienced skiers/boarders should head directly to Sun Mountain. Sun Mountain even has English-speaking trainers available. Sun Mountain is affiliated with Club Med hotel, but you don’t need to be a hotel guest to ski there.

At TiWei, if you’re an experienced skier/boarder, be sure to specify that you want the “advanced ticket”.  Beginners can pay a lower price, but you are limited to only the bottom portion of the mountain. There is accommodation available at all price ranges.    

Facilities of Yabuli Ski Resort

Yabuli Ski Resort has 6 snow-grooming machines that ensure an optimal powder consistency on the surface of the various pistes at all times, another factor that puts this particular ski resort in a class by itself. The skiing season at Yabuli Ski Resort begins in mid-November and runs until the end of March. 

Ski Runs

Yabuli Ski Resort has 9 intermediate- to advanced-level Alpine pistes, a 5-kilometer Nordic trail and a 500-meter gentle Alpine slope for beginners. The resort's prime advanced-level Alpine piste measures some 3 kilometers (3000 plus meters) with a vertical drop of an impressive 805 meters, which makes this the longest – and most exhilarating – Alpine ski piste in all of Asia (it should be noted that the ski resort is divided into a competition and a leisure section, the former being restricted to domestic and foreign professional (i.e., national-team) skiers). 

The ski resort employs more than half-hundred ski instructors, and though not all of the ski instructors are fluent in English, they are all reputed to be knowledgeable, and very thorough in their tutoring. 

The resort has 9 ski lifts, more than enough to ferry skiers to their various destinations without having to wait in long queues. Visitors say that the old adage about 'getting there being half the fun' has never been more true than in the case of the trip up Yabuli Sun Mountain in one of Yabuli Ski Resort's ski lifts: the views are spectacular as the visitor ascends alongside ridges and ravines, looking out over a forest of snow-clad trees.

Accommodation on Yabuli Ski Resort

Windmill Village

Yabuli Ski Resort is a hyper-modern facility with all that the visitor can desire in the way of bars, restaurants and lodgings, as well as in the way of ski and other winter-sport rental facilities. Besides catering to skiers, the resort has facilities for snowboarding, ice skating and tobogganing – in fact, Yabuli Toboggan Run is the world's longest. 

The ski resort incorporates a number of hotels and bed & breakfast establishments with, in all, over 600 beds. Even cheaper accommodations can be found in the town of Yabuli itself. The ski resort's two 3-star hotels, the Windmill Village and the Tinyihu, have between them some 300 beds. These two hotels offer all the latest conveniences, from indoor swimming pools to fitness rooms and billiard halls to Internet cafés, bars, gift shops, restaurants, play rooms for kids – even a full-sized bowling alley – and the hotel rooms naturally come equipped with cable TV.

In the off-season, from late spring to autumn, there are a number of other activities on offer at Yabuli Ski Resort such as "grass skiing", tennis, mini-golf, hot-air ballooning and para-gliding, and then there is the stunning nature of Yabuli Sun Mountain itself, as well as that of the greater Changbai Mountain Range, where the stealthy visitor just might be lucky enough to spot bears, deer, leopards, tigers and wild boars, while just about every visitor will run across hares, pheasants, squirrels – and birds, birds, birds – not to speak of the chance, after-dark spotting of a badger.

Travel Tips on Yabuli Ski Resort

1. Weather condition in Yabuli: Yabuli's winter weather and large amount of snowfall has resulted in the best snow quality in China. The lowest temperature in winter is 44 degrees below zero and the average temperature is 10 degrees below zero. The average snowfall is 20-50cm at lower part of the mountain, 100cm at the top of the mountain. Ski season in Yabuli begins from the middle of November and ends in late March.

2. Protect your skin from the sun and wind. Winter is not only cold but harsh and brutal to your skin. Add up wind, cold weather and UV rays that reflect off the white snow back onto your face. Take hot shower however take it for short periods only as it tend to take away the natural oils and lipids from the skin's surface leaving it dry as bone. Bring some oily skin care products would be very useful.

Enjoy Your Happy Family Times

3. Opening Hours: Daily, 08:00-16:30 (from November to March) The opening time for the ski resort is from 8:00am to 4:30pm(depending on the weather condition on the day). Normally it is getting dark around 4pm to 4:30pm. It is highly suggested that you get up early in the morning to enjoy skiing and then get your lunch around 1pm and have a rest in the afternoon.

4. How to get the Yabuli: There is no airport around Yabuli Ski Resort. Harbin and Mudanjiang are the two nearest cities with airports connecting major cities in China. Harbin Taiping International Airport is about 45 kilometer from downtown area Harbin, you can take the shuttle bus for about 50 minutes from the airport to Harbin train station and take train to Yabuli.

--By Bus: There are a number of tourist trains daily to the resort from Harbin, taking about 3 hours. After arriving at the town, mini tourist buses will transfer you to the tourist resort.

--By Train: To reach there, via public transportation, you can take D61, D63, T479 or T481 train from the Harbin Train Station to the Yabuli Train Station. Once at the train station, take a bus to the skiing resort. There are two railway stations in Yabuli - Yabuli Railway Station and Yabuli Railway South Station. Yabuli Railway Station is located in Yabuli Township while Yabuli Railway South Station located at Yabuli Ski Resort. 

5. Food in Yabuli: The food in Yabuli ski resort in limited, most of them are available in the hotels only. However you can also taste original northeast food at some local restaurant providing local vegetables and meat such as deer meat hot pot, typical northeast China dumpling, sliced pork, sour cabbage and rice noodles. 

--In a word, thrilling Harbin Yabuli International Ski Resort is an ideal place to experience stimulating activities on the ski. This special kind of sport will give you a memorable exciting experience in a beautiful white snow world!