Gionyama Ski Area is a ski area in Akita, Japan, on slopes between roughly 292 and 398 m. Its mapped area is about 0.4 km across, with 3 marked runs and 2 lifts (about 0.4 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 321 cm of snowfall a season, 138th of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (425 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (199 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 114 cm. Snowfall days average −1.5 °C at mid-mountain, close to freezing, so the snow is often heavy, and its snow-quality score ranks 289th of 397 in Japan.
The nearest city of any size is Akita, about 67 km away. Below is a link to its official live camera.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
The tick marks the median across every Japanese ski area we measure. All four bars run the same way — longer is better.
The quality score deliberately excludes how much snow falls — it uses temperature, frequency, rain and wind. Snowing a lot and snowing well are different things.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yashima Ski Area | 20 km | 467 cm | 101 |
| Inakawa Ski Area Suberotta | 20 km | 229 cm | 885 |
| Green Valley Kamuro Ski Area | 25 km | 277 cm | 586 |
| Tengamori Ski Area | 27 km | 377 cm | 211 |
| Gosannen Ski Area | 32 km | 230 cm | 877 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 31% of January’s snowfall. That is a steeper fall than the median for ski areas in Japan (52%): the snow here is concentrated early in the season. In amount, March brings 35 cm, less than the median of 46 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 321 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 199 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 425 cm (2.1 times as much). For 63% of the 397 ski areas in Japan, the leanest winter was the same 2015/16: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Run map
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
99% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Rope tow2
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
Live Cameras
This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. The nearest live view is the road below.
Road conditions decide whether you can get there at all. Check before you leave.
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Worth seeing nearby
Places within 20 km of this ski area, for a day off the slopes or an evening. Chosen from those most read about on Wikipedia, favouring places with an English Wikipedia article, and listed nearest first.
| Place | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| 鈴木家住宅 (羽後町) | Landmark | 4.4 km |
| Hottai Falls法体の滝 | Nature | 13.3 km |
| Sarukura Onsen猿倉温泉 (由利本荘市) | Hot spring town | 15.5 km |
| Kabusan Prefectural Natural Park加無山県立自然公園 | Nature | 15.9 km |
Based on the Japanese Wikipedia lists of sights in each prefecture, as compiled in travel-log-data (CC BY-SA 4.0). English names from Wikidata (CC0). The content of this section is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Map
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
Places to stay nearby
1 properties on Rakuten Travel lie within 3 km of this ski area, listed cheapest first.
| Property | From | Rating | Distance | Getting there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 鈴木家住宅／民泊 | — | — | 4.4 km | 上湯沢駅から車で約２７分 |
Contains advertising · Property data by Rakuten Travel (Supported by Rakuten Developers)
Stay nearby
5 places within 12 km of the slopes. Most of them do not take online bookings — open the map for contact details.
Nearest: 3.9 km
Nearest first
- Kikuchi Ryokan Hotel 3.9 km
- 茅ぶき山荘・格山 Hotel 7.6 km
- 阿専 Guest house 7.8 km
- 遊べる進路相談室 UGO HUB Hotel 10.6 km
- 川原田舘 Hotel 11.1 km
Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap
More places to look
Guides covering Akita
- Ski and Soak in Japan: Which Ski Areas Have a Hot Spring Source Next Door, and How Hot the Water Is We matched 7,203 analysed hot spring sources to Japan's ski areas. 255 of 397 have one within 5 km, 145 of them at 42 °C or hotter, and 54 have one within 1 km. These are the ski areas that pair top snow with hot water close by, and the ones where the water is strongly acidic.
- Will There Be Snow at Japan's Winter Festivals? Three Winters, Measured Japan's winter festivals are photographed in deep snow. We measured what was actually on the ground during each one across three winters — and checked the 580-year record of a frozen lake that has now failed eight years running.
- Japan's Snow Huts Are Water Shrines. The Snowiest Towns Do Not Have Them. The kamakura is not a shelter from snow. It is a well-side shrine to a water god, roughly 450 years old, and Yokote built its huts on 6 cm of snow in 2024. We measured the snow at five towns that hold one.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52