🇯🇵 Japan · Miyagi

Miyagi Zao Sumikawasu Snow Park

みやぎ蔵王スキー場 すみかわスノーパーク
Off season Official site Lift tickets (official)

Miyagi Zao Sumikawasu Snow Park is a ski area in Miyagi, Japan, on slopes between roughly 1,059 and 1,344 m. Its mapped area is about 2.5 km across, with 13 marked runs and 3 lifts (about 8.6 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 258 cm of snowfall a season, 176th of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2024/25 (357 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (129 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 88 cm. Snowfall days are cold, averaging −6.0 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 83rd of 397 in Japan.

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
10.4℃
Max wind
9.3km/h
Elevation (est.)
1059–1344m
Across
2.5km

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
258 cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
129 cm
A typical winter: 260 cm. The best: 357 cm.
World rank
673
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
176
of 397 in Japan
Elevation rank
75
Highest to lowest, of 397 in Japan. The centre point sits at 1,228 m, 462 m above the national median.
Quality rank
83
of 397 in Japan
Temp when snowing
-6.0°C
Japanese median: -3.5°C
Rain days
13%
Japanese median: 16%
Days over 5 cm
17%
Japanese median: 15%
Wind when snowing
21 km/h
Dryness 0.57
Frequency 0.48
Freedom from rain 0.66
Calm when snowing 0.94

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 areaDistanceSeasonal snowfallWorld rank
Miyagi Zao Eboshi Resort2.6 km254 cm701
Zao Liza World6.5 km254 cm701
Miyagi Zao Shiroishi Ski Resort7.2 km190 cm1240
Zao Onsen7.7 km258 cm673
Zao Sarukura9.4 km253 cm704

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 58% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in Japan (52%). In amount, March brings 51 cm, about the same as the median of 46 cm.

67cm
Dec
88cm
Jan
53cm
Feb
51cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 258 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 129 cm; the biggest was 2024/25 with 357 cm (2.8 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.

129
357
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
13
Run length
8.6km
Lifts
3
Vertical
261m
Top 1,371 m · base 1,110 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediate Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.
Run map

Drag to move around, and use + and − to zoom. On a phone, swipe to move and pinch to zoom in further.

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map3.1 km
Steepest pitch32°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs7.2°

Which way the slopes face

North 17%
East 77%
South 4%
West 2%

94% 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 8
Easy 3
Intermediate 2

Lift types

  • Chairlift3

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.

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

3 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 83 °C).

SourceDistanceTemperaturepHTypeAnalysed
峩々2 km58.1℃ hot6.4 neutral——
かもしか上原山137噴気孔2.5 km83℃ hot2.6 acidicacidic—
青根花房の湯4.6 km72℃ hot7 neutral——

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.

PlaceTypeDistance
Okama御釜 (蔵王連峰)Nature3.2 km
Mount Zaō蔵王連峰Mountain3.9 km
Zaō Ropeway蔵王ロープウェイLandmark7 km
Miyagi Zao Fox Village宮城蔵王キツネ村Museum10.7 km
Shiroishi Castle白石城Historic site18.3 km
Kaminoyama Castle上山城Historic site18.6 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 ↗

Places to stay nearby

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

Press it and Rakuten Travel shows what is free on those dates across the properties listed here. Picking a property below does the same for that one property.

PropertyFromRatingDistanceGetting there
峩々温泉——2.0 km【自家用車】東北道 村田I.C.より・白石I.C.より約40分。【送迎あり要別途電話予約】

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

Stay nearby

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

2 Hotel

Nearest: 1 km

Nearest first

Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap

More places to look

Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52

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