Originally Posted by
Cynicor
kiroro is FLAT. Really flat. Do not go there if you can go to Rusutsu. Sheraton is probably just as convenient as the Westin in slope access, but I haven't stayed at the westin, only looked at the area.
I really dislikes Kiroro and the snow was poor. Rusutsu is basically full of Niseko people now though, so it will be a little more crowded. Dunno, the choice is clear to me but we aren't the same person!
When you say flat, in what way? Do you mean the mountain does not have enough challenging terrain? Or that every run is less steep than its rating? Or that their runs have too many flat sections interspersed with hills? Or that there's too long of a flat area at the bottom of chairlifts? If it's the former two, that's totally fine with us. But I do hate having to deal with completely flat areas.
I'm looking at Westin's trail map, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of great options for beginners on the East and Iroha Mtns which is the side connected to Westin. It seems like most of the green runs need to be accessed by interm/diamond runs. Seems like a great mountain for me, but not for my kids.