Shiga Kogen Shibutoge Ski Area is a ski area in Gunma, Japan, on slopes between roughly 2,075 and 2,258 m. Its mapped area is about 1.2 km across, with 2 marked runs and 1 lift (about 1.4 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 333 cm of snowfall a season, 119th of the 397 ski areas we measure in Japan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2016/17 (434 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (214 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 104 cm. Snowfall days are cold, averaging −11.3 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 4th of 397 in Japan.
The nearest city of any size is Nagano, about 32 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shiga Kogen Yokoteyama Ski Area | 1.6 km | 333 cm | 333 |
| Shiga Kogen Kumanoyu Ski Area | 3.0 km | 333 cm | 333 |
| Manza Onsen | 4.1 km | 255 cm | 692 |
| YAMABOKU Wild Snow Park | 5.8 km | 255 cm | 692 |
| Shiga Kogen | 5.9 km | 255 cm | 692 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 66% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in Japan (52%). In amount, March brings 69 cm, more than the median of 46 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 333 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 214 cm; the biggest was 2016/17 with 434 cm (2.0 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
88% 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
- Chairlift1
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.
Kusatsu and Manza webcams & snow report — all 5 ski areas →
Official YouTube channel
More than we show here.
Hot springs nearby, as analysed
4 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 95 °C).
| Source | Distance | Temperature | pH | Type | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 硯川 | 3.1 km | 68℃ hot | — | sulphur | — |
| 熊の湯 | 3.4 km | 46.2℃ hot | 6.4 neutral | — | — |
| 万座鈴湯 | 3.9 km | 95℃ hot | 2 acidic | iron, acidic | — |
| 木戸池木戸池1号 | 4.7 km | 42.3℃ hot | 7.2 neutral | simple | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shibu-tōge渋峠 | Nature | 0.6 km |
| Mount Kusatsu-Shirane草津白根山 | Nature | 2.7 km |
| Manza Onsen万座温泉 | Hot spring town | 4 km |
| Shiga Highlands志賀高原 | Nature | 4.4 km |
| Kusatsu Onsen草津温泉 | Hot spring town | 7.9 km |
| Jigokudani Monkey Park地獄谷野猿公苑 | Park | 9.2 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
11 properties on Rakuten Travel lie within 3 km of this ski area, listed cheapest first.
| Property | From | Rating | Distance | Getting there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 横手・山本荘 | ¥6,800 | 3.91 41 reviews | 2.1 km | ＪＲ 長野駅よりバスで９０分 硯川バス停より車で５分／長野電鉄 湯田中駅よりバスで５０分 硯川バス停より車で５分 |
| 志賀高原 ホテル一望閣 | ¥6,800 | 3.68 283 reviews | 3.4 km | 上信越道信州中野ＩＣより国道２９２号線にて４５分。ＪＲ長野駅より急行バス８０分又は長電特急電車５０分＆バス利用４５分。 |
| ほたる温泉 ホテルハイツ | ¥7,425 | 3.91 46 reviews | 3.3 km | 上信越自動車道信州中野ＩＣより約28Ｋｍ約40分。ＪＲ長野駅より志賀高原行バスで７０分 |
| Ｈｏｔｅｌ ＆ Ｏｎｓｅｎ ２３０７ Ｓｈｉｇａｋｏｇｅｎ | ¥7,600 | 3.75 153 reviews | 3.3 km | 中野ICより車で４５分。湯田中駅よりバスにて４５分。硯川バス停下車１分徒歩。 |
| ニュー横手 | ¥8,250 | 5.00 17 reviews | 2.1 km | 長野電鉄「湯田中駅」から路線バスで約５０分。陽坂バス停より徒歩約５分。 |
| 志賀パレスホテル | ¥8,250 | 3.48 281 reviews | 3.4 km | 長野電鉄湯田中駅 ／ 湯田中より長電バスにて５０分 |
| 志賀高原ロッヂ | ¥8,600 | 4.33 58 reviews | 3.2 km | 湯田中駅からバスで45分ほたる温泉下車徒歩5分。信州中野ICから車で約40分。 |
| 志賀高原熊の湯・硯川温泉 にごり湯の宿硯川ホテル | ¥10,000 | 3.83 491 reviews | 3.3 km | 長野電鉄線 湯田中駅下車 バス４０分／上信越自動車道信州中野ＩＣ 国道２９２号経由３０分 |
| 志賀リバーサイドホテル | ¥11,000 | 3.17 40 reviews | 3.3 km | 湯田中駅から志賀高原行きバスで６０分 |
| ホテル大六 | ¥12,700 | — | 1.0 km | 湯田中駅よりバスで50分 |
| ホテル ラ・フォーレ志賀 | — | 4.59 171 reviews | 1.9 km | 上信越自動車道・信州中野ＩＣより車にて３０分、ＪＲ長野駅から長野電鉄線志賀高原行きバスにて７０分 |
Contains advertising · Property data by Rakuten Travel (Supported by Rakuten Developers)
More places to look
What we have measured at Shiga Kogen Shibutoge Ski Area
- 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.
- How Close to Rain Does the Snow Fall? Japan, the Alps and North America Compared We measured how close to freezing the snow already falls at 240 randomly drawn resorts in the Alps and North America, and at all 397 in Japan. Japan is not one place: Honshu is among the most exposed, Hokkaido among the least.
- Why Is Hokkaido's Snow Colder? Latitude, Elevation and Rain Across 397 Japanese ski areas, elevation sets the temperature and latitude does almost nothing to it — inside Honshu, going north is worth nothing at all. What latitude buys instead is the absence of rain.
- 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.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52