Ski Resorts Near Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Hiroshima: How Far, How Much Snow, and Who Wants Overseas Skiers (2026/27)

Most skiing advice about Japan assumes you are flying into Tokyo or Sapporo. A good many visitors land in Osaka instead, or are in Kyoto for the temples, or in Nagoya or Hiroshima on business. There is skiing within reach of all four, and several of those ski areas are working to bring in overseas visitors.

This guide sets out what is near each city, how much snow it gets on our figures, and what the ski areas themselves have announced for this season.

How much is within reach

We measured the straight-line distance from each city’s main station to every Japanese ski area on our list, and took those within 130 km, roughly two hours by road.

City	Ski areas within 130 km	Their typical season
Nagoya	38	220 cm
Kyoto	21	197 cm
Osaka	20	196 cm
Hiroshima	15	105 cm

“Typical” is the median of those ski areas’ average December–March snowfall over twelve winters. The middle ski area in Japan gets about 250 cm on the same measure.

Nagoya is the best placed of the four. It has nearly twice as many ski areas within 130 km as Osaka, and the deepest snow among them. Osaka and Kyoto share most of theirs. Hiroshima’s are close but get the least snow on our figures.

One caution before the details. Our weather model reads western Japan low. Against 16 Japan Meteorological Agency stations near ski areas in Chugoku, Kansai and Shikoku, it returned 44% of what the stations measured; over three winters at the Daisen station, it gave 191 cm a season against a measured 677 cm. The order of the ski areas below holds, but the real snow on the ground is deeper than our centimetres. The full comparison is in Is Western Japan Snowier Than It Looks?

From Nagoya: Gujo and the Okumino ski areas

Ninety kilometres north of Nagoya, Gujo city in Gifu has eleven ski areas, most of them in its Okumino district. The city’s tourism plan (2016) sets out to market them together as “Winter Resort Gujo” and to use its nearness to Chubu Centrair Airport to bring in overseas visitors (Gujo City tourism plan, in Japanese).

Ski area	From Nagoya	Snow a season	Snow quality rank	Opens
Takasu Snow Park	92 km	322 cm	106th	11 Dec
Dynaland	91 km	322 cm	105th
WINGHILLS Shiratori	89 km	266 cm	223rd
Washigatake	86 km	220 cm	226th	21 Nov
WhitePIA Takasu	87 km	220 cm	208th
Hirugano Kogen	93 km	220 cm	251st
Meiho	88 km	193 cm	258th

Snow quality ranks are out of 397 Japanese ski areas and leave out quantity: they score snow-day temperature, how often 5 cm or more falls, rain and wind. Takasu and Dynaland share one weather-model cell, so they get the same snowfall figure. Opening dates are from each resort’s own site; a blank means none was published when we checked.

Takasu and Dynaland are the pick: the most snow in Okumino on our figures and the best quality score of the group. Takasu opens on 11 December. Washigatake opens first, on 21 November.

If you can go further, the Hida and Norikura ski areas, 120–128 km from Nagoya, are a step up. Hirayu Onsen averages 384 cm and ranks 40th in Japan for snow quality, among the best scores in central Honshu.

From Osaka and Kyoto: Lake Biwa, Okuibuki and northern Hyogo

The nearest skiing to both cities is around Lake Biwa. The deeper snow is further out, in northern Hyogo and at the north end of Shiga.

Ski area	From Osaka	From Kyoto	Snow a season	Opens
Biwako Valley	67 km	28 km	98 cm	December
Hakodateyama	93 km	54 km	113 cm	25 Dec
Gransnow Okuibuki	122 km	83 km	194 cm	13 Nov
Yogo Kogen	126 km	87 km	249 cm
Hachi Kogen	116 km	120 km	237 cm
Hachikita Kogen	118 km	120 km	235 cm
Hyonosen Kokusai	115 km	119 km	205 cm

Biwako Valley is the convenient one. Its own English site puts it about 40 minutes from Kyoto and an hour from Osaka, and its snow-play area is right outside the ropeway’s top station, so you reach it without a chairlift (Biwako Valley). Its site says the 2026/27 winter season starts in December but gives two different dates on different pages; check before you go. On our figures it is also one of the least snowy ski areas in Japan, 378th of 397.

Gransnow Okuibuki is the one investing hardest. It opens on 13 November, the earliest in its history, on snow from 45 snowmaking machines of two kinds, and runs until 11 April (Okuibuki’s announcement, in Japanese). It rebuilt its rental centre for last season at a cost of ¥980 million and says it now holds 5,000 sets, which matters if you have flown in without skis (Okuibuki, in Japanese). It is 59 km from Nagoya as well, closer to Nagoya than to either Osaka or Kyoto.

For the most snow from Osaka, go north to Hyogo: Hachi Kogen and Hachikita average 235–237 cm and rank around 215th–230th for quality, the best in the Kansai list.

From Hiroshima: six ski areas within 50 km

Hiroshima is closer to its ski areas than any of the other three cities. Six lie within 50 km of the station, along the border with Shimane.

Ski area	From Hiroshima	Snow a season
Megahira	33 km	74 cm
Osorakan Snow Park	38 km	116 cm
Yawata Highland 191	44 km	125 cm
Utopia Saioto	45 km	124 cm
Mizuho Highland	45 km	102 cm
Osa	46 km	125 cm

These are the figures where our model’s low reading matters most: it puts all six between 74 and 125 cm a season, but in western Japan it has returned less than half of what stations record. Osorakan sits on Hiroshima’s highest mountain and runs on natural snow; it plans to open in mid-December, when the snow allows, and shares a season pass with Megahira and Osa (Osorakan, in Japanese).

Daisen: a new operator and a new name

Mount Daisen in Tottori, 148 km from Hiroshima and 194 km from Osaka, has four ski areas side by side on its slopes (Tottori Prefecture’s tourism site). Known until this year as Daisen White Resort, the ski area changed hands in 2026.

The previous operator withdrew after the 2025/26 season and handed the ski area to Daisen town. Since April 2026 the town has had it run by Advance Co., Ltd., through a local subsidiary, and it is now called 大山マウンテンリゾート, Daisen Mountain Resort. The operator says it intends to run Daisen as a year-round mountain resort, drawing on what it has done at its other ski areas, rather than as a winter-only business (Advance’s announcement, in Japanese).

Daisen is also where our model’s low reading was measured most directly: the Japan Meteorological Agency station half a kilometre from the lifts recorded more than three times what our figures give the ski area. We had not found the 2026/27 opening date on the resort’s own site when we checked; our Daisen page will show it once it is announced.

Which city to ski from

• Nagoya, for the best snow. Takasu and Dynaland in Gujo are 90 km away with 322 cm a season; Hirayu and the Norikura ski areas are within 130 km.
• Kyoto, for the shortest trip. Biwako Valley is 28 km away: easy for a day or a family snow-play, thin for a ski holiday.
• Osaka, for northern Hyogo if you want snow over convenience, or Okuibuki if you want to ski in November.
• Hiroshima, for a day on the local hills within an hour, on snow our model almost certainly under-reads.

None of these is a substitute for Nagano, Niigata or Hokkaido if deep snow is the point of the trip. They are a way to fit skiing into a trip planned around somewhere else.

How this was measured

Distances are straight lines from Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Hiroshima stations to each ski area’s coordinates. Roads follow valleys, so the drive is longer.

Snowfall is the average December–March total over the twelve winters from 2014/15 to 2025/26, from the ERA5 reanalysis via the Open-Meteo Historical Weather API, calculated the same way for every ski area. The model under-reads mountain snow everywhere and western Japan most of all; see our comparison with 16 weather stations. Ski areas in the same model cell share a figure. Closed ski areas are left out.

Snow quality ranks are out of the 397 Japanese ski areas we measure, from snow-day temperature, the share of days with 5 cm or more, rain and wind. They leave out quantity.

Opening dates and investments are from each resort’s or operator’s own website, checked on 12 November 2026 or, for opening dates, between 25 October and 8 November. Gujo’s plan is from the city’s tourism vision document.

Sources: Open-Meteo historical weather data (ERA5 reanalysis, Copernicus Climate Change Service); Advance Co., Ltd. (XPG); Gransnow Okuibuki; Biwako Valley; Osorakan Snow Park; Gujo City; Takasu Snow Park.