"Ski resorts are especially hard to review given it’s highly dependent on where else in the world you have been and can compare your experience to.

Beidahu ski resort in my opinion, is not quite worth the trek, but can imagine if you have only been in China, it might be considered fine.

It is hailed as having the best powder in China, unfortunately for me, locals say it hasn’t snowed for a month, and it didn’t snow while I was here. Snow was hard and packed.

There are really only two main runs. Each serviced by a Gondola. If you do come. Go to the east gondola in the morning, and the west gondola in the afternoon to get the best sun exposure.

The runs are bland and forgettable in my opinion.

There are few interesting runs with turns, scenery or runs you’d want to revisit over and over again.

The composition is more intermediate blue runs sprinkled with a few green and black, but it doesn’t really matter. Runs are narrow most of the time which makes passing more annoying when newer users take up the piste.

There is a backcountry terrain for skiers that was closed off, a very small park feature near the bunny slopes, and middling hotel choices and your extremely average fare local chinese food for options.

All this is fine if you expect this, and are exploring or ok with just being able to ski/snowboard during a pandemic lockdown.

However, if this is your first time in China trying skiing or snowboarding, I would choose Changbaishan for better hotels (Hyatt, Westin, Sheraton, Park Hyatt), food, restaurants, and hot spring. Also be prepared for the runs here to be quickly boring, but at least it’s easier to get to, and more to do outside of skiing/boarding.

I wouldn’t come back to BDH unless I ran out of other options.

Solid 3/5 for delivering on what is expected of ski/snowboard experience in China. Nothing near Japan or more established resorts in the West."

Edward Chi

"This is one of the most famous ski resorts in China, but for foreign skiers, there is no need to go there specifically.

Eastern China is mainly plains. There are no continuous mountains here. The development time is relatively short. It cannot be compared with famous resorts in Japan, Europe and other places. If you like the endless mountains, you can choose Xinjiang; if you like mature facilities, famous international hotels, hot spring facilities and a variety of delicacies, you can go to Changbai Mountain.

Of course, this ski resort has an irreplaceable advantage for local skiers, but it is recommended that you make a comparison before coming.

Before coming here, you'd better know a little Chinese. There maybe only a few people who can speak English, but in most cases you can use translation app to communicate.

There are many restaurants and B&Bs at the foot of the mountain. The prices are very cheap, with accommodation prices around RMB 100-200. The food is mainly Northeast China cuisine, which is salty and large in quantity. Try to find a young boss or ask young people for help, so that the communication will be smoother. Fortunately, most people in Northeast China are very enthusiastic.

Please note that China has certain requirements for where foreigners stay after entering the country. Some B&Bs may directly refuse to let you in. The most guaranteed way to get in is to book on the resort's official website. It is recommended to book on Chinese platforms, such as WeChat mini-programs, which will be cheaper.

The ski slopes here are all flattened. In addition to the official ski slopes, there are also many natural ski slopes found by friends. I suggest you pay attention to the consultation on rednote."

Roxie Liang

"I am a snowboarder. I spent 5 days at Beidahu in the second half of January. I usually like to ride a mix of on and off-piste, and enjoy carving as well as some jumps etc. I am not really into park.

We booked a long time in advance, taking advantage of the early-bird packages, which were really well-priced through Chinese-language websites.

The package included ski-in, ski-out accommodation, breakfast, lift passes, equipment rental and onsen access.

Getting there from Beijing was easy. Catch the fast train, then use a DiDi for a transfer from the train station to the resort.

The ski/snowboard infrastructure is good. Most of the lifts were relatively new 6 or 8-seat gondolas. Queues while we were there were minimal, except for one day when the only gondola providing access to about one half of the runs shut down temporarily due to power issues for about 3 hours, resulting in the other half of the mountain getting busy. Even then, the longest I waited in a queue would have been 15 minutes, and usually it was ski-on, ski-off or very close to it.

There is a good mountain centre with a lot of cheaper eating options, plus a few a la carte table service restaraunts. The runs were generally well-groomed, with only the occasional bump between grooming lines.

There were two green/beginner runs, which were very popular.

The rest of the runs (and there were plenty of them) were a mix of intermediate or advanced (black). I didn't see any double-blacks or anything like that.

There were two parks when we were there, a small line with a couple of kickers and a couple of rails, and a big line with some big kickers and rails.

The room we stayed in was ok, although it lacked some furniture and the staff on the front desk lacked training in customer service or the accommodation's systems. It was also a little bit removed from the mountain centre, however the regular shuttle bus worked well and we never missed out on a seat.

The food in the mountain centre turned out to be the best option for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We tried the town close to the resort but it was more expensive and less convenient than the mountain centre. The mountain centre was also right next to the onsen, which meant we could ride all day, eat dinner then walk straight into the onsen before going back to our room to sleep.

The snow is nearly all man-made. There is very limited natural snowfall. I thought this would be a problem for me but it wasn't. That's mainly because the temps never got near 0. They are always -4 celcius or less. This means the man-made snow doesn't melt, so it remains similar to compacted powder. The fact it doesn't melt really limits the risk of icy days. Very occasionally a patch on the beginner or intermediate runs might appear, from too many people side-slipping, but for nearly the whole time I had no problem digging an edge into the snow for carving.

WIth no off-piste, I thought the terrain might be too limited. Again, however I found that there were more than enough on-piste trails to keep me entertained, and sidehits plus the odd ungroomed mound of manmade snow were enough to keep me entertained between the hard carving and ground tricks.

Not many people are fluent in English, but Google translate combined with a bit of pointing etc can usually get you by.

I think my favourite parts of the trip were the views from the mountain tops, the fact that I didn't spend much time at all waiting in queues, heaps of gondolas, good food and the awesome onsen.

Downsides were almost no riding in the trees or natural features to hit (cliffs, jumps etc - and there were plenty of nice looking sections too) and a lack of customer service at times.

Conclusion: If you can book early and get good pricing, Beidahu is a great option for a cheap and different ski holiday."

Thomas Cameron