🇯🇵 Japan · Gunma

Kazawa Snow Area

鹿沢スノーエリア
8 / 100 Powder Score
No Snow ☁️ Official site Lift tickets (official)

Kazawa Snow Area is a ski area in Gunma, Japan. The terrain spans roughly 1305–1807 m above sea level. The mapped ski area covers about 1.9 km². Within 2.5 km of the centre, the map shows 13 marked runs and 8 lifts, totalling about 6 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 138 cm of snowfall a season, 1719th (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. 1 official live camera is linked below. 139 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
15℃
Max wind
11.8km/h
Elevation (est.)
1305–1807m
Area
1.9km²

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 8/10
Base 0/5

Powder Score v1.0.0

7-day outlook

Date Snow Temp Wind
🌦️ 27 Sept 0 10.5 / 17.5 8.9
🌧️ 28 Sept 0 11.8 / 16 11.8
🌧️ 29 Sept 0 10.8 / 12.9 9.3
☁️ 30 Sept 0 7.9 / 18.3 7.4
☁️ 1 Oct 0 8.8 / 19.1 9.2
🌤️ 2 Oct 0 2.4 / 12.6 12
🌤️ 3 Oct 0 2.4 / 13 6.3

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
11
Run length
5.9km
Lifts
8
Vertical
316m
Top 1,666 m · base 1,350 m

Run map

EasyIntermediateAdvanced 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 map1.0 km
Steepest pitch26°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs12.1°

Which way the slopes face

North 71%
East 28%
South 0%
West 0%

99% 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

Easy 4
Intermediate 1
Advanced 6

Lift types

  • Chairlift8

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.

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
138 cm
per season
Range over three winters
64 cm
95–159 cm. The best winter was 1.7x the worst.
World rank
1719
of 3,112 worldwide
Rank in country
338
of 395 in Japan
Elevation rank
40
Highest to lowest, of 395 in Japan. The centre point sits at 1,461 m, 708 m above the national median.
Quality rank
247
of 395 in Japan
Temp when snowing
-6.0°C
Japanese median: -3.5°C
Rain days
10%
Japanese median: 16%
Days over 5 cm
6%
Japanese median: 15%
Wind when snowing
17 km/h
Dryness 0.57
Frequency 0.16
Freedom from rain 0.73
Calm when snowing 0.98

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
Takamine Mountain Park Ski Area7.1 km142 cm1673
Palcall Tsumagoi Resort Ski & Hotel10 km181 cm1256
Sugadaira Kogen Davos Hill Ski Area11 km156 cm1496
Sugadaira Taro Area11 km156 cm1496
Sugadairakogen Pine Beak Ski Area12 km156 cm1496

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 97% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in Japan (51%). For skiing, though, the amount matters more than the share: March brings 37 cm, less than the median of 45 cm.

27cm
Dec
38cm
Jan
29cm
Feb
37cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 11 winters

What was actually measured nearby

Total snowfall from December to March recorded at the 菅平 weather station — 11.8 km from this ski area, 303 m below its mid-slope.

Three-season average379 cm
2023/24509 cm
2024/25345 cm
2025/26284 cm

The figure calculated on this page is 138 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

8 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 42 °C).

SourceDistanceTemperaturepHTypeAnalysed
鹿沢温泉雲井の湯1.6 km—6.6 neutralbicarbonate1986
鹿沢温泉東雲の湯1.6 km—6.8 neutralsimple1989
鹿沢温泉東急泉1.6 km27℃ lukewarm6.7 neutralsimple1982
鹿沢温泉竜宮の湯1.6 km39.5℃ warm7 neutralbicarbonate1982
鹿沢温泉竜宮の湯1.7 km—6.9 neutralbicarbonate1989
渋沢温泉4.9 km42℃ hot8.25 mildly alkalinesimple—

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
Mount Azumaya四阿山Mountain8.6 km
Mount Asama浅間山Mountain10.8 km
Kanbara Kannondō鎌原観音堂Temple12.2 km
Komoro Castle小諸城Historic site15.4 km
Ueda Castle上田城Historic site17.7 km
Karuizawa軽井沢町Old streets20 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

8 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
鹿の湯 つちや¥5,5003.48 112 reviews—上信越道 湯の丸IC下車 湯の丸経由40分。
鹿鳴館<群馬県>¥8,5804.33 47 reviews—最寄高速道路 上信越道:上田・菅平ICから菅平・嬬恋方面へ 車で30分 東御嬬恋線沿いにございます
休暇村 嬬恋鹿沢(旧:休暇村 鹿沢高原)¥10,0004.13 195 reviews—長野新幹線上田駅温泉口より送迎バス 11:10/15:00(要予約)
鹿沢リゾートホテル———万座・鹿沢口/東京→上信越自動車道→碓氷・軽井沢ICより約45分
隠れ宿 羽和陽———【電車】JR万座鹿沢口駅からお車で約20分/【車】小諸ICより約35分
ロッヂ すばる———万座・鹿沢口駅下車 タクシー20分/ 関越・上信越道 小諸IC・東部湯の丸ICより30分、渋川ICより80分
嬬恋鹿沢キャンピングガーデン———上信越自動車道 小諸IICよりお車にて約30分
ホテル鹿沢 真田屋—4.00 49 reviews—JR万座鹿沢口駅下車、タクシーで20分/小諸ICより県道79号~県道94号経由

Contains advertising · Property data by Rakuten Travel (Supported by Rakuten Developers)

Stay nearby

8 places within 12 km of the slopes. Most of them do not take online bookings — open the map for contact details.

7 Hotel 1 Apartment

Nearest: 0.5 km

Nearest first

Accommodation data: OpenStreetMap

More places to look

Updated: 26 Sept 2026, 23:28

← Back to home