Mikawa Onsen is a ski area in Niigata, Japan. The terrain spans roughly 126–388 m above sea level. The mapped ski area covers about 1.0 km². Within 2.5 km of the centre, the map shows 11 marked runs and 4 lifts, totalling about 4.9 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 386 cm of snowfall a season, 196th (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 Niigata, about 39 km away. 2 official live cameras are linked below. 100 other ski areas lie within 120 km. Snow figures and the Powder Score are recalculated every day.
Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.
Score breakdown
Powder Score v1.0.0
7-day outlook
| Date | Snow | Temp | Wind |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☁️ 27 Sept | 0 | 16.9 / 24.3 | 6 |
| 🌧️ 28 Sept | 0 | 18.1 / 21 | 4.9 |
| 🌦️ 29 Sept | 0 | 15 / 21.9 | 7.5 |
| 🌤️ 30 Sept | 0 | 11.2 / 22.3 | 5 |
| 🌧️ 1 Oct | 0 | 10.5 / 21.4 | 14.2 |
| 🌦️ 2 Oct | 0 | 10.7 / 16.3 | 21.4 |
| 🌦️ 3 Oct | 0 | 9.5 / 16.5 | 11 |
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
Only 45% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Chairlift4
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. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.
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.
Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com
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.
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 area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ninox Snow Park | 24 km | 599 cm | 38 |
| Fuyudorigoe Ski Garden | 26 km | 362 cm | 260 |
| Tainai Ski and Snowboard area | 33 km | 717 cm | 17 |
| Fairy Land Kaneyama Ski Area | 33 km | 412 cm | 159 |
| yanaizu onsen ski area | 34 km | 252 cm | 733 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 24% 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. In amount, March brings 34 cm, less than the median of 45 cm.
What was actually measured nearby
Total snowfall from December to March recorded at the 津川 weather station — 6.8 km from this ski area, 157 m below its mid-slope.
| Three-season average | 472 cm |
| 2023/24 | 306 cm |
| 2024/25 | 591 cm |
| 2025/26 | 518 cm |
The figure calculated on this page is 386 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
2 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 43 °C).
| Source | Distance | Temperature | pH | Type | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 三川三川温泉2号 | 2.1 km | 43℃ hot | 7.7 mildly alkaline | — | — |
| 津川津川 | 4.6 km | 32℃ lukewarm | 8.5 alkaline | alkaline 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 咲花温泉 | Hot spring town | 9.3 km |
| 五頭山 | Mountain | 10.2 km |
| 五頭温泉郷 | Hot spring town | 13.3 km |
| Suntopia Worldサントピアワールド | Leisure | 13.6 km |
| Lake Hyōko瓢湖 | Nature | 19.3 km |
| Tsukioka Onsen月岡温泉 | Hot spring town | 19.6 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
3 properties on Rakuten Travel lie within 3 km of this ski area, listed cheapest first.
| Property | From | Rating | Distance | Getting there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 三川温泉 新かい荘 | ¥7,700 | 4.17 37 reviews | — | 三川駅よりお車にて7~8分 |
| 三川温泉 湯元館 | — | — | — | 三川駅よりお車にて約10分 |
| 三川温泉 叶屋旅館<新潟県> | — | — | — | 磐越道 三川ICより車で10分 |
Contains advertising · Property data by Rakuten Travel (Supported by Rakuten Developers)
Stay nearby
12 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
Updated: 26 Sept 2026, 23:28