Yoichi Goto’s first skiing trip to China was a pleasant surprise. The 33-year-old runs the Asian arm of the Freeride World Tour, an off-piste skiing and snowboarding competition, from his base in Niseko, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. In February, having landed in Beijing, he took the four-hour bus journey to Genting Resort Secret Garden — set to be China’s largest ski resort when it is complete — and a key host site for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The set-up was well organised, the people friendly and the snow was artificial. “The few days of snow it gets each year are not enough to ski on,” Goto says, adding that the season starts as early as October and typically runs until March.
Most striking, however, were the number of keen young Chinese skiers. These included a 26-year-old software engineer and a 27-year-old executive at a news app, both from Beijing, whom Goto met on the bus. “They are spending every week on the slopes in the resorts around Beijing,” he says.