Snowboarding in China - Nanshan review 南山滑雪场

1. Intro
Just an hour away from Beijing, Nanshan 南山滑雪场 is a decent sized place to spend a day polishing your shredding skills. Cost-wise, it's not that cheap compared with other resorts in the Beijing area, but that's because it's the best one. Also on weekends it can get quite packed, but then again that's China.


Nanshan is especially good for those who like to freestyle as this resort has the biggest & best park in all of China! (Here's Denis in the park doing a grab)


2. Transport
The best way to Nanshan is car. But, if you don't have a car, the second best way is to take the Nanshan shuttle bus. It departs every morning at 08:30 from Sanyuanqiao 三元桥 in northeast Beijing.

OMG I just checked the website and starting from Feb 1st, there's a new bus departing from Wudaokou 五道口! That's just like 2min from where I live! Awsome, no more getting all geared up with board, taking the subway and getting stared at by the locals.

How to get back home? No problem, the bus will take you back at 17:30.

**Remember, reserve a bus seat or lift ticket one day in advance by calling the hotline: 89091909. They will then message you a discount number that you can use when you buy your lift ticket!

3. Slope
Snow at Nanshan is of course all manmade. There are 3 chairlifts and about 4 main runs. Most are quite easy, green / blue runs. There is one short section from the top of the mountain (see picture below) that is steeper, some might consider it a black, but anyway it's quite short. Here you see the 2-person lift next to Mellow Park.


View of Mellow Park, it's a great place to practice your jumps. They also hold the annual Red Bull Open here, apparantly the biggest snowboard competition in China.


Checkout those monster kickers!


This is on the way to the top. The lifts are quite slow.


4. Base
There are 2 buildings for rentals & lockers. I think it costs about 30 RMB for rental plus you gotta pay a deposit. There are also 5-6 stores selling gear.


Here is the canteen where we had lunch in front of Mellow Park. There is an outdoor and indoor section. A great place to recharge and get some sun. There are 2 other places to eat, apart from the standard rice + chicken / pork meal, they also serve Korean. A set meal of rice+meat+soup or noodles will cost about 30RMB. Of course there's always the skewers 串 and my favorite - roasted sweet potato.


5. Bottomline
Shuttle bus.................................30
Resort entrance ticket....................20
All-day weekend lift pass
(with 40% reservation discount)........200
Total..................................RMB 250