Okutadami Maruyama Ski Resort
Okutadami Maruyama Ski Resort is a ski area in Niigata, Japan, on slopes between roughly 685 and 1,160 m. Its mapped area is about 2.1 km across, with 14 marked runs and 5 lifts (about 6.7 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 765 cm of snowfall a season, 1st of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2016/17 (989 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (381 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 259 cm. Snowfall days average −3.5 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 70th of 397 in Japan.
The nearest city of any size is Niigata, about 86 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oze Hinoemata Onsen Ski Resort | 20 km | 439 cm | 120 |
| Aizu Kogen Takahata | 21 km | 439 cm | 120 |
| Tadami Ski Area | 22 km | 482 cm | 91 |
| Muikamachi Hakkaisan | 23 km | 728 cm | 5 |
| Yakushi Ski Area | 23 km | 532 cm | 72 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 41% 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 105 cm, more than the median of 46 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 765 cm, and 4 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 381 cm; the biggest was 2016/17 with 989 cm (2.6 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
95% 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
- 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
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Official YouTube channel
More than we show here.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Okutadami Dam奥只見ダム | Nature | 1.3 km |
| Echigo Sanzan-Tadami Quasi-National Park越後三山只見国定公園 | Nature | 13.9 km |
| Mount Echigo-Komagatake越後駒ヶ岳 | Mountain | 14.9 km |
| Mount Aizu-Komagatake会津駒ヶ岳 | Mountain | 16.2 km |
| Tagokura Dam田子倉ダム | Nature | 17.4 km |
| Mount Hakkai八海山 | Mountain | 19.9 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.
Official piste map ↗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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| お宿 とんじろ | — | — | 2.8 km | ＪＲ 浦佐駅よりお車にて約５０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.
Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap
More places to look
What we have measured at Okutadami Maruyama Ski Resort
- Which Ski Resort Gets the Most Snow in the World? We measured snowfall at all 3,069 ski areas on earth the same way. The top two both shut in winter because they get too much snow: a Norwegian glacier at 783 cm that opens in May, and Okutadami Maruyama in Niigata at 765 cm. 46 of the top 100 are Japanese.
- Snow Quality or Snow Quantity: Why Japan's Snowiest Ski Areas Are Not Its Best Japan's snowiest ski areas see rain on more than one winter day in four, and the wettest of them on two in five. We rank all 397 of them on a quality measure that ignores how much falls and scores what falls: temperature on snowing days, how often it dumps, and penalties for rain and wind. It disagrees with the snowfall ranking almost completely.
- Is March a Good Time to Ski in Japan? Across twelve winters at 397 Japanese ski areas, March delivers 46 cm against January's 81 cm. Niigata keeps 38% of its January; Hokkaido keeps 69%. But Niigata's 38% is 76 cm and Hokkaido's 69% is 41 cm, which reverses the advice.
- Which Japanese Lift Ticket Buys the Most Snow? Price per Centimetre at 22 Resorts We divided each resort's adult day ticket by the snow it actually gets. Across 22 Japanese resorts the figure runs from ¥6.50 to ¥78.80 per centimetre, a twelvefold spread, and the expensive end is not the snowy end. Niseko is ¥46.70. Nozawa is ¥17.30.
- Which Japanese Ski Areas Keep Their Snow at 4°C of Warming? New research from Hokkaido University puts 7 ski areas on stable natural snow at 4°C. Our own data on 397 Japanese ski areas says 17 of the ranking's top 20 are on the wrong side of that line.
- Why Did Powder Snowboards Come From Japan? Japan's median ski area sits at 766 m against 1,475 m in the Alps, and its deepest snow falls into dense forest rather than above the treeline. That combination demanded a different shape of board.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52