Super Mario 64 Snowman's Land Guide: All 7 Stars

Snowman's Land is the only one of Super Mario 64's 15 main courses with no Blue Coins anywhere in it. The Super Mario Wiki's own course notes confirm it outright. It also has no Spinning Heart — not unique on its own (seven other main courses go without one too) but still no free mid-course top-up. That is not filler trivia — it is the shape of the level. Nintendo built a snow course with none of the usual coin-value ladder and none of the usual free heal, then quietly swapped in a species of enemy that appears in no other course in the game.

This is the tenth course, the last one in this vertical without a dedicated guide, and the one the site's own redundancy audit flagged as a remaining clean slot back when Lethal Lava Land shipped. Here is every star for both games, the two freezing ponds that behave nothing alike, the full 127-coin breakdown, and the enemy that will walk off with your cap if you are not careful.

Where Snowman's Land sits, and how you get in

Snowman's Land is the tenth course of Super Mario 64, per the Super Mario Wiki, unlocked by clearing Bowser in the Fire Sea. That fight hands you the key to the Mushroom Castle's second floor, and the entrance is up there — in the Mirror Room, on the left.

There is no painting to jump into. The wall itself is the entrance, playing the same trick Shifting Sand Land does with its basement hallway: the wiki notes the wall "is an apparently blank wall... but can be jumped into like a regular painting," and the only clue is the room's actual mirror, which reflects the Cool, Cool Mountain painting onto that blank stretch of wall to tell you where to jump. It is also worth knowing the two snow courses share more than a coat of paint — Snowman's Land plays Cool, Cool Mountain's music track, confirmed by both wikis' course infoboxes, so if you have already cleared the Cool, Cool Mountain guide's course, the theme will already be familiar.

Inside, the entire course wraps around one landmark: Snowman Mountain, a mountain built in the literal shape of a snowman's head and shoulders. You start in a snowfield beside the course's single cannon and the Star Marker, with the mountain itself dead ahead.

Every star, N64 and DS

Snowman's Land carries seven total stars in the N64 original — six named missions plus the 100-coin star, which the wiki's own infobox star count confirms. Super Mario 64 DS adds a seventh named mission and, as with every DS course, turns the 100-coin star into a separate eighth star rather than one of the seven slots, so the DS total is eight.

Three N64 missions do not survive the remake at all: In the Deep Freeze is replaced outright by Yoshi's Ice Sculpture, and Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins is split into two separate DS missions, Snowman's Silver Star and Red Coins in the House.

Two winds, and what each one costs you

This course has two separate wind hazards, and they do different jobs. Mixing them up costs you either your cap or your position.

The first is in the ravine to the right of the starting snowfield, where an Amp circles. Step into the ravine itself and, per the Super Mario Wiki, "a large gust of wind will begin pushing the player toward the course's edge" — this one is a shove, not a full reset.

The second is worse, and it lives at the top of the mountain. Climbing toward the summit puts you on an ice bridge with a penguin walking across it. Step onto that ice and the snowman's mouth blows a wind blast that, per the wiki, "will blow the player back to the start if they get caught in it and make them lose their cap." The fix is not to fight the wind — it is to ride it out. Climb onto the penguin's head and let it carry you across; the penguin moves at inconsistent speed and sometimes backward, so the job is patience, not a sprint.

Losing the cap here has a punchline the game never states outright. The Super Mario Wiki's Mr. Blizzard page records it as a fact, not a rumor: if Mario loses his cap to the giant snowman and the game is closed before it's recovered, a Mr. Blizzard will be wearing it on the next visit — unless a Toad already picked it up first. Mr. Blizzard isn't the only enemy tied to Mario's cap in this game — Shifting Sand Land's Klepto and Tall, Tall Mountain's Ukiki both steal it directly, mid-run, rather than just inheriting one Mario already lost.

Two freezing ponds, not one

Snowman's Land has two bodies of freezing water, and the course page is specific that they are not the same hazard wearing two skins.

The pond directly under the Chill Bully's platform "acts similarly to lava," per the Super Mario Wiki: step into it and you are launched into the air, same as a lava bounce elsewhere in the game.

The second pond — past the Chill Bully, to the left, where Whirl from the Freezing Pond happens — is a different threat. It does not launch you. It drains your health continuously while you're in it, and the health guide has the exact rate: Snowman's Land's freezing water saps health three times faster than normal water drains your air meter, and critically, it does not stop when you surface. Ordinary water heals you the moment your head clears the surface. This water keeps draining you even then. The only actual fix is to leave the water entirely, not to bob at the top of it.

That second pond is also how you clear Whirl from the Freezing Pond: jump onto one of the Spindrifts patrolling the water and the bounce launches you in a spin, high enough to clear the ledge beyond. A well-timed triple jump does the same job without needing the enemy.

Chill with the Bully

Mission 2 is the course's one boss fight, and the boss guide already covers the fight itself in full: no damage dealt either way, just shoving, on an icy platform where a whiffed punch can carry you straight past him into the water below. What's worth restating here only because it matters for routing this specific course: the Chill Bully's platform sits over the first freezing pond — the lava-like one that launches you, not the slow-drain one past him. Shove him in and the star spawns above the platform.

Whirl from the Freezing Pond, and the ledge trick

Past the Chill Bully's platform, the second pond blocks a ledge too tall to clear with a normal jump. Three ways over it, all confirmed by the Super Mario Wiki's mission page: jump off a Spindrift in the water for the spin-launch, triple-jump it directly, or — if you're playing Luigi in the DS version — use his Backward Somersault. Once you're up, the yellow ! block on the left holds the Power Star directly. No detour needed for this one; it's the shortest star in the course.

Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins

This is the N64-only Red Coin mission, replaced entirely on DS. Two of the eight Red Coins sit in the open snowfields near the start — the easy half of the set. The other six are past the same ledge Whirl from the Freezing Pond uses, except this time you hit the yellow ! block on the right side rather than the left, which produces a Shiny Shell. Ride it along the stretch of snow to collect four Red Coins, then dismount and grab the last two underneath the Chill Bully's own platform.

On Super Mario 64 DS this mission doesn't exist. The same Shiny Shell mechanic gets repurposed into Snowman's Silver Star — five Silver Stars scattered around the course, one of them requiring the shell to reach the space underneath the Chill Bully's platform — and the Red Coins move into the igloo as their own separate mission, Red Coins in the House.

Into the Igloo, and the Vanish Cap

The igloo is reachable two ways: ride the Shiny Shell up the slope on the left side of the second pond, or drop down directly from the penguin's ice bridge. Either way, entering means crouching — you have to crawl through the opening.

In the N64 version, this is one of Snowman's Land's caged-off objectives, and the cap guide already covers where the game-wide blue Vanish Cap switch lives; Snowman's Land is one of only four courses with a Vanish Cap block, alongside Big Boo's Haunt, Dire, Dire Docks and Wet-Dry World. Here specifically, the blue ! block sits in the igloo's back right, reachable by a double jump or a wall-kick over the ice wall inside. Grab it, turn into Vanish Mario, and run through the ice wall blocking the platform near the entrance before the 20-second timer runs out.

Super Mario 64 DS replaces this entirely: only Luigi can take this star, using a red block in the igloo's back left that produces a Power Flower instead of a cap. The Power Flower turns Luigi invisible rather than translucent, and the objective changes with it — sprint to the large grate at the igloo's entrance and fall through it.

A Bob-omb Buddy also lives inside the igloo in both versions, and talking to him is not optional if you want the fast route through the rest of the course: he is what opens the course's single cannon. Skip him and the cannon-based shortcuts to the mountain's summit and the misplaced coin (below) simply aren't available yet.

The only course with Money Bags

Two things about this course don't turn up anywhere else in Super Mario 64. The Super Mario Wiki is explicit on the first: "two Money Bags appear in Snowman's Land" — full stop, no other course listed. They start out disguised as an ordinary, slightly-too-conspicuous coin, and only reveal themselves as a hopping, purse-shaped creature once Mario gets close. Defeat one — four hops, then a few seconds walking flat on the ground, then it's vulnerable — and it drops five coins. Two of them account for ten of the course's 127 coins.

The second, less flattering distinction belongs to the course's coin count itself: Ukikipedia documents an "impossible-looking" 127th coin hidden inside the wooden platform on top of the snowman, unreachable by normal movement. The trick isn't actually hard once you know it — fire yourself from the course's cannon at one specific aiming angle and the coin is yours. Without it, the course's natural total drops to 126, which is why some older strategy counts differ from the 127 both wikis now agree on.

Where the 127 coins are

The Super Mario Wiki's course statistics give the headline split: 127 coins, 89 outside the igloo and 38 inside it. Ukikipedia's itemized template accounts for every one of them.

Static pickups, location-confirmed — 42 of the 127

Everything else — enemies and Red Coins, 85 of the 127

42 + 85 = 127, matching both wikis' total. The wiki's outside/inside split (89/38) folds the enemy-drop coins into whichever half of the course each enemy patrols — Ukikipedia's table itemizes the enemies by species rather than by side of the map, so the two tables above are the honest way to present it without guessing which individual Spindrift stands where.

One practical read from that table: the igloo alone accounts for 26 confirmed static coins, and the 100-coin stars guide already flags this course as the one where skipping the interior costs you the run outright — you cannot reach 100 on the exterior alone.

What Super Mario 64 DS changes

One thing that does not change: per Ukikipedia's own version-differences note for this course, the coin count, the two freezing ponds and the core layout carry over unmodified between N64 and DS — this is a course where the missions moved around far more than the map did.

What the A Button Challenge did here

Every one of Snowman's Land's seven N64 stars, including the 100-coin star, has been cleared in the A Button Challenge with zero A presses, per Ukikipedia's tracking table. The one catch documented alongside that result: Into the Igloo still needs the Vanish Cap to complete legitimately within the challenge's own rules, since the star is gated behind the wall-phasing mechanic regardless of how few buttons you press to get there.

Mistakes this course punishes

• Treating both freezing ponds the same. The Chill Bully's pond launches you like lava. The second pond just drains you, even at the surface. Confusing which one you're standing in costs health for the wrong reason.
• Fighting on the ice bridge instead of riding the penguin. Step onto the bare ice and the wind resets your position and takes your cap with it.
• Losing the cap here and quitting for the day. A Mr. Blizzard picks it up, and it's gone until you fight through one to get it back — or find a Toad holding it instead.
• Skipping the igloo on a coin run. 26 of its confirmed static coins live there, and this is a course with no margin to spare on the 100-coin star without it.
• Assuming every DS course change is additive. This one is the exception: In the Deep Freeze and Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins are both gone outright, not supplemented.
• Looking for a Spinning Heart. There isn't one — this is one of eight main courses that skip it, so don't bank on a free top-up here.

Quick Action Checklist

• Enter through the blank wall in the Mirror Room, left side, second floor — no painting to spot, just the mirror's reflection to guide you.
• Talk to the Bob-omb Buddy inside the igloo early; he opens the course's only cannon.
• Ride the penguin across the ice bridge rather than crossing on foot, or you lose your cap to the wind.
• Use a Spindrift's launch, a triple jump, or Luigi's Backward Somersault to clear the ledge for Whirl from the Freezing Pond.
• For Red Coins (N64): two in the open snowfields, four via the Shiny Shell from the right block, two under the Chill Bully's platform.
• For the Vanish Cap star (N64): the blue block is in the igloo's back right — double jump or wall-kick to it.
• Sweep the igloo on any coin run — 26 of its coins are confirmed static pickups you cannot skip and still hit 100.
• Shoot the cannon at the documented angle if you want the 127th, "impossible" coin under the snowman's wooden plank.