🇯🇵 Japan · Niigata

Itoigawa Seaside Valley Ski Resort

糸魚川シーサイドバレースキー場

Itoigawa Seaside Valley Ski Resort is a ski area in Niigata, Japan, on slopes between roughly 240 and 581 m. Its mapped area is about 2.7 km across, with 15 marked runs and 5 lifts (about 10 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 703 cm of snowfall a season, 7th of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2018/19 (849 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (388 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 255 cm. Snowfall days average 0.1 °C at mid-mountain, close to freezing, so the snow is often heavy, and its snow-quality score ranks 286th of 397 in Japan.

The nearest city of any size is Nagano, about 40 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.

Temperature

14.9℃

Max wind

6.9km/h

Elevation (est.)

240–581m

Across

2.7km

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.

Seasonal snowfall

703 cm

per season

Worst of 12 winters

388 cm

A typical winter: 729 cm. The best: 849 cm.

World rank

of 3,069 worldwide

Rank in country

of 397 in Japan

Elevation rank

269

Highest to lowest, of 397 in Japan. The centre point sits at 478 m, 288 m below the national median.

Quality rank

286

of 397 in Japan

Temp when snowing

+0.1°C

Japanese median: -3.5°C

Rain days

31%

Japanese median: 16%

Days over 5 cm

37%

Japanese median: 15%

Wind when snowing

14 km/h

Dryness 0.14

Frequency 1.00

Freedom from rain 0.35

Calm when snowing 1.00

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
Hakuba Cortina	17 km	635 cm	30
Charmant Hiuchi Snow Resort	18 km	690 cm	18
Hakuba Norikura Onsen Ski Resort	18 km	635 cm	30
Tsugaike Kogen	20 km	668 cm	21
Myoko Suginohara	23 km	357 cm	268

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 35% 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. For skiing, though, the amount matters more than the share: March brings 89 cm, more than the median of 46 cm.

202cm

Dec

255cm

Jan

156cm

Feb

89cm

Mar

Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 703 cm, and 5 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 388 cm; the biggest was 2018/19 with 849 cm (2.2 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.

388

849

14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26

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.

Marked runs

Run length

10km

Lifts

Vertical

490m

Top 734 m · base 244 m

Run map

EasyIntermediateAdvanced Lift

North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map2.8 km

Steepest pitch31°measured over at least 30 m

Average gradient of the runs9.6°

Which way the slopes face

North 58%

East 29%

South 4%

West 9%

87% 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

Easy 6

Intermediate 5

Advanced 4

Lift types

Chairlift5

See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗

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.

Roads nearby国道148号 ↗From the resort: 4.2 kmOperated by: 新潟県新潟県土木部

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.

Official YouTube channel

More than we show here.

Hot springs nearby, as analysed

2 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 41.6 °C).

Source	Distance	Temperature	pH	Type	Analysed
a spring in 小谷村戸土	2.4 km	14.2℃ cold	7.9 mildly alkaline	—	1974
梶山温泉梶山元湯	4.1 km	41.6℃ warm	7.2 neutral	—	1974

These are analyses of hot spring sources, not a list of baths you can visit. They date from 1910 to 2005, many from decades ago, so today’s temperature and chemistry may differ. Names are as recorded in Japanese. Temperature and pH bands follow Japan’s standard for analysing hot springs.

Source: processed from the hot spring analysis data in the Geothermal Information Database (GRES-DB), Geological Survey of Japan, AIST

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
高浪の池	Nature	5.7 km
Amakazari Onsen雨飾温泉	Hot spring town	5.8 km
Mount Amakazari雨飾山	Mountain	7.2 km
Fossa Magna Museumフォッサマグナミュージアム	Museum	10.6 km
Jade Coastヒスイ海岸 (糸魚川市)	Nature	13.4 km
Oyashirazu親不知	Nature	18.6 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.

Official piste map ↗

Nearby resorts

Get directions ↗ Open in Google Maps ↗

Places to stay nearby

3 properties on Rakuten Travel lie within 3 km of this ski area, listed cheapest first.

Property	From	Rating	Distance	Getting there
姫川温泉　ホテル白馬荘	¥8,000	3.86 60 reviews	5.2 km	JR大糸線平岩駅より徒歩５分／長野自動車道　豊科ICより白馬方面へ／北陸道　糸魚川ICより白馬方面へ
姫川温泉　ホテル国富翠泉閣	¥19,000	4.34 358 reviews	6.0 km	ＪＲ大糸線　平岩駅
朝日荘	—	—	5.2 km	ＪＲ大糸線・平岩駅／北陸道・糸魚川ＩＣ～Ｒ１４８経由１９Ｋ／長野道・豊科ＩＣ～Ｒ１４７経由糸魚川方面

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.

4 Hotel 1 Guest house

Nearest: 1.3 km

Nearest first

ホワイトクリフ Hotel 1.3 km
雨飾山荘 Hotel 5.8 km
山岸荘 Hotel 11.4 km
古民家民泊アトリエFUMI Guest house 11.7 km
ホテル糸魚川インター Hotel 11.7 km

Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap

More places to look

Booking.com ↗Agoda ↗Rakuten Travelad ↗

What we have measured at Itoigawa Seaside Valley Ski Resort

Everywhere on Earth You Climb for Snow. Japan Is the One Place You Drive Toward the Sea. Across 3,069 ski areas we measure, height and snowfall move together — +0.58 in France, +0.85 in Germany. In Japan the figure is +0.02. The reason is not that elevation stopped working.