🇯🇵 Japan · Iwate

Okunakayamakogen Ski Area

奥中山高原スキー場

8 / 100 Powder Score

No Snow 🌤️ Official site Lift tickets (official)

Okunakayamakogen Ski Area is a ski area in Iwate, Japan. The terrain spans roughly 621–869 m above sea level. The mapped ski area covers about 1.9 km². Within 2.5 km of the centre, the map shows 10 marked runs and 5 lifts, totalling about 6.1 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 208 cm of snowfall a season, 1009th (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. 3 official live cameras are linked below. 34 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

14.7℃

Max wind

11.5km/h

Elevation (est.)

621–869m

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	Temp	Wind
☁️ 27 Sept	11.5 / 18.2	11.1
☁️ 28 Sept	12.7 / 20.2	14.2
🌤️ 29 Sept	8.7 / 16.5	11.7
🌤️ 30 Sept	6 / 17.5	12.1
🌦️ 1 Oct	7.8 / 17.9	17.5
🌧️ 2 Oct	5 / 10.3	23.8
🌦️ 3 Oct	4.4 / 11.5	17.6

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

Run length

6.1km

Lifts

Vertical

357m

Top 1,003 m · base 646 m

Run map

EasyIntermediateAdvanced Lift

North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map1.0 km

Steepest pitch29°measured over at least 30 m

Average gradient of the runs13.5°

Which way the slopes face

North 22%

East 72%

South 6%

West 0%

94% 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 3

Intermediate 2

Advanced 5

Lift types

Chairlift5

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

On the mountainWatch live ↗Operated by: 奥中山高原スキー場 Roads nearby国道4号 ↗From the resort: 4.5 kmOperated by: 東北地方整備局岩手河川国道事務所 Roads nearby国道4号 ↗From the resort: 10.8 kmOperated by: 東北地方整備局岩手河川国道事務所

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.

Appi and Hachimantai webcams & snow report — all 11 ski areas →

See the snow in motion

2018/03/17 Okunakayamakogen Ski Resort

OfficialBy: OkunakayamakogenResort · 2018-03-17

2018/02/25 Evening OkunakayamaKogen Ski resort

OfficialBy: OkunakayamakogenResort · 2018-02-25

パウダーとツリーランだらけの奥中山高原スキー場

Rider footageBy: KSI visions · 2026-01-06

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

208 cm

per season

Range over three winters

48 cm

179–227 cm. Steadier from winter to winter than most.

World rank

1009

of 3,112 worldwide

Rank in country

262

of 395 in Japan

Elevation rank

188

Highest to lowest, of 395 in Japan. The centre point sits at 788 m, 35 m above the national median.

Quality rank

225

of 395 in Japan

Temp when snowing

-4.9°C

Japanese median: -3.5°C

Rain days

15%

Japanese median: 16%

Days over 5 cm

Japanese median: 15%

Wind when snowing

21 km/h

Dryness 0.49

Frequency 0.27

Freedom from rain 0.61

Calm when snowing 0.93

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
Tayama Ski Area (Hachimantai City)	20 km	302 cm	477
Appi Kogen	23 km	413 cm	157
Hachimantai Resort Panorama Ski Are	28 km	357 cm	268
Hachimantai Resort Shimokura Ski area	29 km	357 cm	268
Hanawa Ski Area	32 km	290 cm	532

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 60% 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 34 cm, less than the median of 45 cm.

55cm

Dec

57cm

Jan

41cm

Feb

34cm

Mar

Average snowfall by month, last 11 winters

What was actually measured nearby

Total snowfall from December to March recorded at the 奥中山 weather station — 4.7 km from this ski area, 315 m below its mid-slope.

Three-season average	450 cm
2023/24	410 cm
2024/25	570 cm
2025/26	369 cm

The figure calculated on this page is 208 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

1 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 5 km of this ski area, nearest first (the hottest is 15 °C).

Source	Distance	Temperature	pH	Type	Analysed
七時雨山(荒沢)田代の湯	4.5 km	15℃ cold	6.1 neutral	—	—

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
Fudō Falls不動の滝 (八幡平市)	Nature	10.6 km
Goshono Site御所野遺跡	Historic site	16.3 km
Nesori no dai keikaboku根反の大珪化木	Nature	17.4 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 ↗

Nearby resorts

Get directions ↗ Open in Google Maps ↗

Places to stay nearby

1 properties on Rakuten Travel lie within 3 km of this ski area, listed cheapest first.

Property	From	Rating	Distance	Getting there
ホテル奥中山高原	¥5,800	4.18 142 reviews	—	IGRいわて銀河鉄道　奥中山高原駅から車で１０分　最寄駅から無料送迎有※要予約

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