🇯🇵 Japan · Nagano

Jiigatake Snow Resort

爺ガ岳スキー場

Jiigatake Snow Resort is a ski area in Nagano, Japan, on slopes between roughly 949 and 1,180 m. Its mapped area is about 1.6 km across, with 11 marked runs and 5 lifts (about 5.5 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 449 cm of snowfall a season, 51st of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. Its winters are fairly steady; even the leanest, 2019/20 (353 cm), reached 79% of the average. January is usually the snowiest month, with about 146 cm. Weather models read low in the mountains: a Japan Meteorological Agency station 5.1 km away measured 240 cm a winter over the last three seasons, against 465 cm from the model. Snowfall days average −3.6 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 95th of 397 in Japan.

The nearest city of any size is Nagano, about 35 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

12.9℃

Max wind

5.9km/h

Elevation (est.)

949–1180m

Across

1.6km

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

449 cm

per season

Worst of 12 winters

353 cm

A typical winter: 433 cm. The best: 589 cm.

World rank

110

of 3,069 worldwide

Rank in country

of 397 in Japan

Elevation rank

113

Highest to lowest, of 397 in Japan. The centre point sits at 1,032 m, 266 m above the national median.

Quality rank

of 397 in Japan

Temp when snowing

-3.6°C

Japanese median: -3.5°C

Rain days

21%

Japanese median: 16%

Days over 5 cm

29%

Japanese median: 15%

Wind when snowing

10 km/h

Dryness 0.40

Frequency 0.82

Freedom from rain 0.46

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
Kashimayari Snow Resort	5.3 km	449 cm	110
Hakuba Sanosaka Snow Resort	7.8 km	415 cm	153
Hakuba Goryu	13 km	414 cm	155
Hakuba 47	13 km	668 cm	21
Hakuba Happo-One	16 km	414 cm	155

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 49% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in Japan (52%). In amount, March brings 71 cm, more than the median of 46 cm.

136cm

Dec

146cm

Jan

95cm

Feb

71cm

Mar

Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 449 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2019/20 with 353 cm; the biggest was 2024/25 with 589 cm (1.7 times as much).

353

589

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

5.5km

Lifts

Vertical

258m

Top 1,178 m · base 919 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediate Lift

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

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map1.1 km

Steepest pitch21°measured over at least 30 m

Average gradient of the runs10.8°

Which way the slopes face

North 0%

East 80%

South 19%

West 0%

80% 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

Novice 2

Easy 6

Intermediate 3

Lift types

Chairlift4
Magic carpet1

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19号 ↗From the resort: 15.3 kmOperated by: 関東地方整備局長野国道事務所

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.

Hakuba Valley webcams & snow report — all 10 ski areas →

What was actually measured nearby

Total snowfall from December to March recorded at the 大町 weather station — 5.1 km from this ski area, 280 m below its mid-slope.

Three-season average	240 cm
2023/24	262 cm
2024/25	333 cm
2025/26	126 cm

The figure calculated on this page is 465 cm.

A weather station is not a ski slope. We picked one at a similar elevation, but it stands in a valley or a village. More snow falls on the mountain above it. We have not tried to guess how much more.

Source: Japan Meteorological Agency historical records

Hot springs nearby, as analysed

7 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 63.5 °C).

Source	Distance	Temperature	pH	Type	Analysed
大町温泉大町温泉第1源泉	3.7 km	—	7.18 neutral	—	1972
大町温泉大町温泉第2源泉	3.7 km	—	7.45 neutral	—	1972
大町温泉大町市温泉開発(株)	3.7 km	63.2℃ hot	7.65 mildly alkaline	simple	1973
大町温泉長野県公営企業管理者	3.7 km	61.8℃ hot	7.7 mildly alkaline	sulphur	1965
葛温泉温泉組合分湯槽	3.7 km	63.5℃ hot	7.4 neutral	simple	1976

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
Lake Kizaki木崎湖	Nature	3.5 km
Lake Nakatsuna中綱湖	Nature	5.8 km
Kurobe Dam黒部ダム	Landmark	12.2 km
Kurobe Gorge黒部峡谷	Nature	13.9 km
Mount Tate立山	Mountain	16 km
Mount Tsurugi剱岳	Mountain	17.6 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

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

Property	From	Rating	Distance	Getting there
マルハン爺ガ岳ロッヂ	—	—	0.6 km	信濃大町駅よりお車にて約１５分

Contains advertising · Property data by Rakuten Travel (Supported by Rakuten Developers)

Stay nearby

12 places within 12 km of the slopes. Most of them do not take online bookings — open the map for contact details.

7 Hotel 5 Guest house

Nearest: 3.3 km

Nearest first

星野リゾート界アルプス Hotel 3.3 km
ホテル夢の湯 Hotel 3.4 km
Kuroyon Royal Hotel Hotel 3.5 km
かしわ荘 Hotel 3.7 km
ときしらずの宿織花 Hotel 4.1 km
民宿達磨屋 Guest house 4.4 km

Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap

More places to look

Booking.com ↗Agoda ↗Rakuten Travelad ↗

What we have measured at Jiigatake Snow Resort

Hakuba's Ten Ski Areas, Side by Side: 1,071 m of Vertical at One End, 70% Beginner Runs at the Other Hakuba Valley is sold as one place and is ten separate ski areas. We put the terrain each one publishes next to the snow we measured over twelve winters. Happo-One has 23.3 km of piste and, with Goryu, the least snow; Cortina and Norikura share a ¥6,500 ticket and sit in the second-snowiest band; Jiigatake is 70% beginner runs with 260 m of vertical.