China Ski Tips - Chongli Wanlong Ski Resorts Detailed Guide 2021

This is a detailed travel guide to one of my favorite ski resorts in China: Chongli Wanlong Ski Resorts, located in Beijing’s surrounding area.

I am Aspen, an NZSIA certified ski instructor, APSI and CASI certified snowboard instructor. I’ve been teaching snowsports in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, and China for over 15 seasons now, and I’ve been teaching in China since 2017.

If you can only visit one ski resort in China during winter, Zhangjiakou Chongli Wanlong Ski Resort is your ultimate choice.

It has everything you need: nice view, various terrains, high quality packed snow, clean and comfortable accommodation, very easy to get around, professional management, convenient, excellent food and after-ski activities.

Did I mention that this is also the appointed venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics?

Chongli Wanlong ski resort is also one of our most recommended ski resorts in China, located in the Zhangjiakou area, only 2 hours away from Beijing.

Chongli ski resorts are formed by a group of different ski resorts, including:

Wanlong
Thaiwoo
Fulong
Genting resort secret garen
Changchengling
Cuiyunshan
Bangtai Sidaogou

Wanlong ski resorts are the biggest and most popular one among all these ski resorts.

Table of Contents

Chongli Wanlong Ski Resort Basic Information

Here are some of the most important information:

Transportation

By air: The closest airport is Zhangjiakou airport, from there, you can take a taxi going to Wanlong ski resorts, it costs you around 200 RMB. Or else you can fly to Beijing airport, then take the high-speed train to Chongli station.

By train: You can take a high-speed train from Beijing to Chongli station (around 1 hour), then take a taxi to Chongli ski resort (approximately 20 mins)

By Car: It takes around 3 – 3.5 hours to drive from Beijing city center to Wanlong ski resort. I like driving to Wanlong because it rarely snows around the area, so it’s pretty easy to get around.

Getting around different Chongli ski resorts: There are public buses connect Chongli town center, Wanlong, and Fulong ski resorts. It takes only 3 RMBs. There are many taxis around the area too.

Opening Time

Every year from early November to early May, most of the time they open from 0800 to 1630, when it gets warmer, they will open earlier, like 0700.

Snow Quality

To be very honest, you would be expecting a mix of natural snow and artificial snow, but this is a resort willing to spend a lot of resources on making snow so that you can expect very nice packed, groomed runs every morning.

Not much like Niseko in Japan, but pretty much like Europe and Whistler on regular days. Just much nicer and less icy because of the nonstop running snow-making machines.

Ski Slopes Overview

The name Wanlong means “Ten thousand Dragon” in Chinese. All the slopes in Wanlong are named with different dragons. From golden dragon, silver dragon, long dragons…

You can find a few kilometers long beginner ski slopes in Wanlong, a first-timer-friendly magic carpet area, and beginner-intermediate slopes suitable for snowboarding beginners.

Experts will love their moguls, ungroomed, and planned tree runs. This is also the exam venue for many level 2 exams for different international ski and snowboard instructors systems, including but not limited to CSIA, CASI, NZSIA, SBNIZ, BASI.

English Speaking Ski School

We also offer international snowsports instructing services for English-speaking guests, if you are planning a ski holiday here, we can also help you out as well.

All of our instructors hold a valid international snowsports instructor certificate (ISIA approved). We can speak fluent English, Chinese, Cantonese and have over 5 seasons of teaching experience in Niseko, New Zealand, Australia, and China.

Food

I have to say the food in Wanlong is amazing! You can find a giant food collection in the 2nd-floor canteen area. From BBQ, noodles, dim sum, Japanese grill eel, steak, chicken and fries, salad, freshly baked cakes, and a Costa cafe.

This is how Chinese skiers describe Wanlong’s food quality: Mountains of Europe, Snow of Japan, Food of Wanlong.

Want more!? Traveling to the Chongli town area and you can find many nice restaurants. I love their roasted lamb, soup, hotpot, Korean fried chickens.

Accommodations

There are three ski-in-ski-out hotels in Wanlong:

Clean, comfortable, cozy and convenient. Although they are not managed by any international brands and yet the service quality is good.

Shuanglong hotel and international serviced apartment are connecting together, guests staying in both accommodations can have breakfast buffets at Shuanglong hotel.

I do love Shuanglong hotel’s breakfast and dinner buffets, the food is tasty and with lots of variety. Their dragon hot pot is so well known as a high-quality, great value dining option.

If you prefer to cook something by yourself, Wanlong international service apartment comes with a kitchen.

There are hot springs in both hotels so do bring your swimsuits.

After Skis Activities

Wanlong is a very well built ski resort with many facilities, you can find restaurants, massage places, hot springs in the resorts.

Chongli town center is only 30 mins away by car and you can find entertainment there, from restaurants, bars, cinema, gym, and ski gears shop.

One of the best parts of going skiing in Chongli is, you can find the best boot fitter in China.

Professional Boot Fitting Services

Barton’s boot fitting shop is located in Chongli town. As a boot fitter offering ski and snowboard boot fitting services, he learned everything from a Canadian Level 4 Skiing instructor and a well-experienced boot fitter.

I love that he doesn’t stock any ski or snowboard boots, so there is no pressure of pushing you to purchase specific boots. Unlike other not-so-professional boot fitters in China, most of the adjustments he made are reversible.

You want that because you can make a lot of adjustments when your skills improve.

Hot Springs/Sports Recovery Therapy

One out of the two hot springs is located in Wanlong, there is also a professional sports recovery therapist over there too. He saved our backs and legs during those very busy days.

We have recommended many students and friends to visit him and all of them are happy with his skills.