7月まで滑れるスキー場に行ってきたよ【月山スキー場】
By: あすかだよ · 2026-06-13
Mount Gassan Ski Resort is a ski area in Yamagata, Japan, on slopes between roughly 1,241 and 1,582 m. Its mapped area is about 1.3 km across.
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 655 cm of snowfall a season, 20th of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (833 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (370 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 219 cm. Snowfall days are cold, averaging −7.4 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 20th of 397 in Japan.
The nearest city of any size is Yamagata, about 40 km away. Below are links to 3 official live cameras.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Temperature
7.6℃
Max wind
13.4km/h
Elevation (est.)
1241–1582m
Across
1.3km
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
655 cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
370 cm
A typical winter: 673 cm. The best: 833 cm.
World rank
25
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
20
of 397 in Japan
Elevation rank
45
Highest to lowest, of 397 in Japan. The centre point sits at 1,423 m, 657 m above the national median.
Quality rank
20
of 397 in Japan
Temp when snowing
-7.4°C
Japanese median: -3.5°C
Rain days
20%
Japanese median: 16%
Days over 5 cm
41%
Japanese median: 15%
Wind when snowing
22 km/h
Dryness 0.67
Frequency 1.00
Freedom from rain 0.47
Calm when snowing 0.92
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hagurosan Ski Area | 19 km | 488 cm | 86 |
| Asahi Shizenkan Snow Park | 25 km | 419 cm | 149 |
| Hachimoriyama Ski Area | 35 km | 213 cm | 1022 |
| Budoh Snow Resort | 43 km | 472 cm | 95 |
| Hanagasa Kogen Ski Area | 44 km | 321 cm | 401 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 40% 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 88 cm, more than the median of 46 cm.
207cmDec
219cmJan
141cmFeb
88cmMar
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 655 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 370 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 833 cm (2.3 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.
370
833
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 marked runs and lifts on the map, within 2.5 km of the centre of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Marked runs
0
Lifts
1
Lift types
- Chairlift1
Source: OpenStreetMap (ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Difficulty uses the European grades, which do not map onto North American green / blue / black.
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112号 ↗From the resort: 4.5 kmOperated by: 東北地方整備局 酒田河川国道事務所Roads nearby国道112号 ↗From the resort: 4.8 kmOperated by: 東北地方整備局 山形河川国道事務所Roads nearby国道112号 ↗From the resort: 17.4 kmOperated by: 東北地方整備局 酒田河川国道事務所
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.
See the snow in motion
Videos remain the copyright of whoever filmed them. JAPANSNOWLINE stores no video and plays everything through the standard YouTube player.
Hot springs nearby, as analysed
5 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 50.9 °C).
| Source | Distance | Temperature | pH | Type | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 湯殿山 | 2.4 km | 50.9℃ hot | 6.6 neutral | — | — |
| 丹生 | 2.7 km | 19℃ cold | 5.1 mildly acidic | simple | — |
| 月山志津 | 4.1 km | — | — | — | — |
| 元笹小屋・笹小屋跡 | 4.4 km | 14.6℃ cold | 5.8 mildly acidic | iron | — |
| 八紘沢湯殿山ホテル1 | 4.4 km | 16℃ cold | 5.5 mildly acidic | iron | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mount Yudono湯殿山 (山形県) | Mountain | 2.1 km |
| Yudonosan Shrine湯殿山神社 | Shrine | 2.5 km |
| Mount Gassan月山 | Mountain | 2.8 km |
| Sagae Dam寒河江ダム | Nature | 8.5 km |
| Three Mountains of Dewa出羽三山 | Mountain | 19.2 km |
| Mount Haguro羽黒山 (山形県) | Mountain | 19.3 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 ↗ Coordinates: 38.5281, 140.0085
Places to stay nearby
2 properties on Rakuten Travel lie within 3 km of this ski area, listed cheapest first.
| Property | From | Rating | Distance | Getting there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 月山リゾートイン | — | 4.63 57 reviews | 1.0 km | 山形駅よりお車にて約２時間４５分 |
| ロッヂやつなみ | — | — | 1.3 km | 寒河江駅から車で約６０分 |
Contains advertising · Property data by Rakuten Travel (Supported by Rakuten Developers)
More places to look
What we have measured at Mount Gassan Ski Resort
- Which Japanese Ski Areas Still Get Snow in a Bad Winter? You book in August and ski in February, so the question is how bad a bad winter gets. Over twelve winters at 376 Japanese ski areas, the bad years arrived everywhere at once — and what protected you was not a steady region but a deep one.
- Which of Japan's 100 Famous Mountains Have a Ski Area? We matched Fukada's 1964 list against 397 Japanese ski areas. Above 2,500 m, 88% of the volcanoes have a ski area within 10 km and only 19% of everything else does — and no lift on the list reaches a summit but one.
- Tengendai Kogen: Some of Japan's Best Snow Quality, and No Live Camera Snow falls at −7.8 °C, rain arrives on 12% of winter days, and the top station is at 1,860 m. Eight places to stay, and no live camera of its own.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52