Iizuna Kogen Ski Area
A seven-lift ski area on Nagano's doorstep that held the moguls events of the 1998 Winter Olympics, closed in February 2020 when the city could not give it away, and is being replanted as forest.
- Region
- Nagano Prefecture
- Country
- Japan
- Status
- closed
- Year opened
- 1965
- Year closed
- 2020
- Reason for closure
- A long collapse in skier numbers - from about 230,000 a year at the 1984 peak to 29,000 in 2019 - compounded by warming winters on south-facing slopes. The City of Nagano tried to hand the area to a new operator in 2018 at virtually no cost and got no takers; the final season managed only a few days of operation in January 2020, and the last day was 16 February 2020.
History
Iizuna Kogen (飯綱高原スキー場) sat on the Iizuna plateau about 13 km north of central Nagano City, close enough to be the city's local hill. It opened in 1965 and grew to seven lifts - a 933 m quad, a triple, four pair lifts and a single chair - serving ten courses from a 1,080 m base to a 1,400 m top, 320 m of vertical, with a longest run of 1,900 m and a steepest pitch of 34 degrees. Its moment came in 1998, when the F Course hosted the moguls events of the Nagano Winter Olympics; the run was afterwards renamed the Satoya Tae Course for Tae Satoya, who won gold there and became the first Japanese woman to win a Winter Olympic title. That legacy did not save it. Skier numbers had already peaked at around 230,000 in 1984 and fell to 29,000 by 2019, and the south-facing slopes suffered badly as winters warmed. The City of Nagano offered the area to a new operator in 2018 at effectively no cost and found no interest, put it up for sale, and closed it when no buyer came forward. Snow shortage limited the final season to a handful of days in January 2020 and the last day of operation was 16 February 2020. Across its 55 years it recorded 5,100,839 visits. The lifts and buildings are being removed, the pistes replanted with trees and the mountain returned to nature, with the city refocusing on green-season use such as camping - one of the few closures in this list where full restoration was the plan from the start.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Quad | 933 m, the area's main lift | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Triple | 374 m | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Double | 711 m | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Double | 557 m | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Double | 375 m | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Double | 296 m | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Single | 413 m |
Runs
- F Course (Satoya Tae Course)
Sources and further reading
More in Japan
Location
36.7057, 138.1414