Yeah I wouldn't walk it in winter, the road's quite narrow with 2 metre ice walls either side. A cab was only about 1200 yen each way from memory. Save your legs for hiking the awesome myoko backcountry.
The hotel has 2 restaurants, 1 french and 1 japanese. The french one is quite nice, one of the most amusing restaurant experiences I've had. Black tie clad waiters, like you imagine an old-school high class french restaurant. The menu is in japanese or french (no english). Linen napkins. At one stage I think I counted 10 utensils per person on the table. Japanese wine (not bad). The food was quite good, budget about $100 (aussie) per head including wine.
I never ate at the japanese one because you had to book, at the time of booking you had to decide which menu you wanted (out of 3 choices) and I never knew what 2 of them were, and you had to book by 4pm in the afternoon for that evening. I never had my sh*t together 'cause all I could think about was the epic off piste and where I was going the next day.
I loved sitting in the onsen at the hotel in the early evening after a long day of epic deep off piste face shots, watching the last ray of light disappear from the valley below with a can of asahi in my hand (trying to ignore the fact there was a naked man next to me) whilst musing over the epic snow conditions.
The only slight negatives for this hotel is that there were only a couple of people that spoke any more than a few phrases of english. Also, they have a ski room (with lockers) but no dedicated drying room which means drying your gear in your room. I generally left my boots on top of my locker and pulled the inners out. They were always dry in the morning.
The bar is very beautiful, although everytime I went in there in the evening there was virtually no-one in there.
If you take your lady friend she will love the in-house clarins spa, although, like everything at this hotel, your credit card will take quite a beating.
