Mount Moiwa Ropeway Entrance — Attraction in Sapporo

We visited this mountain to experience its iconic scenic views during the day and night. To reach the top, you’ll need a round-trip ticket priced at 2,100 yen per adult, which includes rides on two types of cable cars: a smaller one and a larger gondola.

🥲 Getting to the Base The incline to the mountain’s entry point is quite steep. If you’re not comfortable climbing, there’s a shuttle bus that starts operating at 5:30 p.m. This bus takes you directly to the base where you can purchase tickets, making it much easier for those who might struggle with the climb.

🚠⛰️ Cable Car Journey Purchasing Tickets At the base, you buy your tickets for the round trip that involves a large gondola and small cable car.

🚠 The Large Gondola First, you board the large gondola, which takes you to the middle station. Here, you can enjoy some sights or prepare for the next leg of the journey.

🚠 The Smaller Cable Car From the middle station, take the smaller cable car to the peak. This takes you to the rooftop viewing deck, where the most breathtaking views await.

⛰️ At the Peak Winter Wonderland! We visited during winter, and the entire area was covered in a thick layer of snow. The snow-covered forests, mountains in the background, and panoramic city views from the rooftop were absolutely stunning.

🏔 Photo Spot At the rooftop, there’s a photo spot with a bell where visitors can take memorable pictures. While many people queued up for this, we chose to skip it and instead enjoyed soaking in the views, watching the sunset, and taking in the serene atmosphere.

✨️ Tips for Your Visit Weather Conditions The area may close earlier than usual due to bad weather. To avoid disappointment, check the mountain’s YouTube live-stream video to confirm the weather conditions before purchasing your tickets.

Plan your trip to align with sunset for the best experience, as both the day and night views...

Definitely worth a visit, even if it’s busy.

We visited Mt Moiwa on a weekday, late March. We arrived by bus from nearby Marayuma Park (Jingu Tea Rooms & Shrine) at about 17:20.

It was pretty busy and a popular time to arrive. We queued to get the lift to the ticket floor, queued for tickets and for the ropeway. Tickets cost 2,100 for a round trip per person. We didn’t book tickets in advance and would recommend this, as it will speed up the queue if it’s busy. It took about 30 minutes for us to get to the top of Mt Moiwa after arriving.

The ropeway takes 5 minutes, then you change at the Middle Station for a 2 minute cable car journey. The ropeway and cable car were busy on both journeys (up and down), so we couldn’t get many pictures.

Our time of arrival allowed us to see the view of Sapporo in daylight (just… the sun had set), and wait for the night time view.

On our trip down, we left Mt Moiwa at about 18:45. This must be a popular time as it took about 1 hour of queuing from the top of Mt Moiwa, using the cable car and ropeway to arriving at the bottom of the mountain (Ropeway Entrance).

On arrival at the Ropeway Entrance the queues were much larger than when we arrived, so an earlier time might be better.

The Ropeway says that it runs every 15 minutes. However the staff were offering the service up and down the mountain continuously, this helped the queues move quickly.

Definitely...

We went to Mt Moiwa on the evening of December 25. Given the special occasion, season, and clear weather, it was understandably very busy. There was already a line up of about 1 hour at around 4PM.

You can take the bus or tram and then either walk up the hill to the ropeway station, or take a shuttle bus. The hill is steep and it can be icy and slippery in the winter, so please take care.

Once at the station, go upstairs and wait in line to buy a ticket/board. It is a two-part journey to the top: 1) the ropeway, for 1400円 roundtrip, goes 3/4 of the way up, then 2) the cable-car, 700円 roundtrip, takes you up to the summit. There is no discount option for 1-way trips, but you can choose to walk the Nature Study Trail (closed at night) instead of the cable-car, it’s a paved 15 minute walk.

It was very cold at the top, but so beautiful on a clear night, with views over all of Sapporo. There is a map with landmarks to look for, and a photo spot with illuminations. As it was busy, it also took a long time to wait to get down. In total the visit took...