🇯🇵 Japan · Niigata

Joetsu International

上越国際
10 / 100 Powder Score
No Snow 🌤️ Official site

Joetsu International is a ski area in Niigata, Japan. The terrain spans roughly 197–896 m above sea level. The mapped ski area covers about 6.6 km². Within 1.9 km of the centre, the map shows 33 marked runs and 11 lifts, totalling about 16 km of piste. There is no settled snow at the moment — the season has not started here yet. Over the last three winters the ERA5 reanalysis gives it 686 cm of snowfall a season, 19th (tied) of the 3,112 ski areas we measure worldwide. The model runs well below what resorts report, so the ranking is the meaningful part rather than the centimetre figure. The nearest city of any size is Nagano, about 70 km away. 1 official live camera is linked below. 131 other ski areas lie within 120 km. Snow figures and the Powder Score are recalculated every day.

Base depth
0cm
Snow 24h
0cm
Snow 48h
0cm
Next 24h
0cm
Next 72h
0cm
Temperature
18.9℃
Max wind
6.5km/h
Elevation (est.)
197–896m
Area
6.6km²

Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.

Score breakdown

Fresh (48h) 0/40
Forecast (24h) 0/25
Snow quality 0/20
Wind 10/10
Base 0/5

Powder Score v1.0.0

7-day outlook

Date Snow Temp Wind
🌦️ 27 Sept 0 15.9 / 22.2 7.9
🌧️ 28 Sept 0 16.8 / 20.5 6.5
🌧️ 29 Sept 0 13.5 / 18.1 6.7
☁️ 30 Sept 0 11.7 / 21.4 8.2
🌦️ 1 Oct 0 10 / 20.8 7.3
🌧️ 2 Oct 0 10.3 / 14 11.2
☁️ 3 Oct 0 8.3 / 16.5 8.7

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
41
Run length
23km
Lifts
19
Vertical
714m
Top 931 m · base 217 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvanced 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 map1.7 km
Steepest pitch29°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs9°

Which way the slopes face

North 36%
East 37%
South 14%
West 14%

73% 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 1
Easy 16
Intermediate 22
Advanced 2

Lift types

  • Chairlift19

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.

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.

Official YouTube channel

More than we show here.

How much snow it gets

Measured by us across 3,112 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Seasonal snowfall
686 cm
per season
Range over three winters
231 cm
604–835 cm. The best winter was 1.4x the worst.
World rank
19
of 3,112 worldwide
Rank in country
19
of 395 in Japan
Elevation rank
243
Highest to lowest, of 395 in Japan. The centre point sits at 587 m, 166 m below the national median.
Quality rank
192
of 395 in Japan
Temp when snowing
-1.5°C
Japanese median: -3.5°C
Rain days
41%
Japanese median: 16%
Days over 5 cm
36%
Japanese median: 15%
Wind when snowing
13 km/h
Dryness 0.25
Frequency 1.00
Freedom from rain 0.35
Calm when snowing 1.00

The tick marks the median across the 395 Japanese ski areas. 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
Chateau Shiozawa Ski Area Yoshizato3.9 km547 cm56
Ishiuchi Hanaoka Ski Area4.6 km686 cm19
Nakasato Kiyotsu5.5 km610 cm31
Muica Snow Resort6.1 km547 cm56
Ishiuchi Maruyama Ski Resort6.7 km686 cm19

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 29% of January’s snowfall. That is a steeper fall than the median for ski areas in Japan (51%): the snow here is concentrated early in the season. For skiing, though, the amount matters more than the share: March brings 76 cm, more than the median of 45 cm.

188cm
Dec
266cm
Jan
180cm
Feb
76cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 11 winters

What was actually measured nearby

Total snowfall from December to March recorded at the 湯沢 weather station — 10 km from this ski area, 206 m below its mid-slope.

Three-season average810 cm
2023/24619 cm
2024/251080 cm
2025/26732 cm

The figure calculated on this page is 686 cm.

A weather station is not a ski slope. We picked one at a similar elevation, but it stands in a valley or a village. More snow falls on the mountain above it. We have not tried to guess how much more.

Source: Japan Meteorological Agency historical records

Hot springs nearby, as analysed

6 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 44 °C).

SourceDistanceTemperaturepHTypeAnalysed
大沢大沢鉱泉1.1 km28℃ lukewarm8.5 alkaline——
湯ノ城上越パラダイス1.3 km44℃ hot———
小栗山小栗山2.3 km36℃ warm———
栃窪高原鉱泉栃窪高原2.9 km5.3℃ cold———
西山鉱泉栃窪1号3 km21.7℃ cold8.4 mildly alkaline——

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
Kiyotsu Gorge清津峡Nature8 km
Untō-an Temple雲洞庵Temple8.5 km
Yuzawa Kōgen Ropeway湯沢高原ロープウェイNature10.3 km
Echigo Yuzawa Onsen越後湯沢温泉Hot spring town10.4 km
Tōkamachi City Museum十日町市博物館Museum12.7 km
Mount Makihata巻機山Mountain16.1 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

15 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
グリーンビレッジたかはし¥6,6004.40 122 reviews—上越線 上越国際スキー場前駅/関越道 塩沢・石打ICより車で10分
ペットと泊まれる宿 ヒルサイド イン センタークラブ¥9,3504.50 26 reviews—JR上越線 石打駅から車で5分
ホテル綿ぼうし¥12,5004.65 21 reviews—上越線石打駅よりお車8分/関越自動車道塩沢石打ICよりお車10分
大沢山温泉 大沢舘¥13,7504.55 220 reviews—大沢駅からお車で5分(送迎あり) 塩沢石打ICから車で約10分
ホテルグリーンプラザ上越¥15,3003.71 1882 reviews—越後湯沢駅より車で約30分(無料送迎バス有り:全便完全予約制:前日17時までに要予約)  塩沢石打ICより車で約10分
カジュアル イン シュテム———上越新幹線 JR湯沢駅→上越線 大沢駅より無料送迎有り
ロッヂ シロカワ———JR 上越国際スキー場駅より3分
上越国際スキー場 山田館———JR上越線 上越国際スキー場前駅より徒歩約4分(送迎あり)/関越自動車道 塩沢石打インターより車で約7分
上越国際スキー場 村上館———上越国際スキー場前駅より徒歩4分(ご希望の方は送迎も可能)
プチハウス ひろみ—3.33 19 reviews—JR上越線 上越国際スキー場前駅より徒歩3分
ファームハウス 東栄荘———JR 上越国際スキー場前駅より徒歩5分
青い森こてーじ———塩沢石打インターより8分、JR上越線石打駅より車で約2分、宿まではリフトを使用 (リフト終了時はスノーモービル)
Show the other 3
PropertyFromRatingDistanceGetting there
JOETSU 見晴館—4.50 51 reviews—上越国際スキー場前駅より徒歩1分(30m)
ロッヂ 雪国———上越国際駅より徒歩3分
シャトーテル 一本杉—4.00 30 reviews—JR上越線 塩沢駅よりタクシーで6~7分/関越自動車道 塩沢石打ICより約6.5km 15分/関越道長岡ICより約1時間

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.

1 Guest house 1 Hotel

Nearest: 2.3 km

Nearest first

Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap

More places to look

Updated: 26 Sept 2026, 23:28

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