Itsukamachi

History

Itsukamachi (五日町スキー場) lay directly above the Itsukamachi neighbourhood of Minamiuonuma City in Niigata Prefecture - formerly Muikamachi Town, which merged with Yamato in 2004 - in the deep-snow country of the Uono valley. It opened in the 1960s and grew to a fleet of six lifts, though never more than five ran at once: a 500 m pair lift, single chairs of 800, 500, 500 and 500 m, and an earlier 350 m single that had been removed by the 1990s. The geometry is unusual and tells you something about the snowfall here - eight courses, a longest run of 2,300 m and a steepest pitch of 32 degrees, all drawn out of just 300 m of vertical between a 160 m base and a 460 m top, which is about as low as a ski area gets in Japan. It was last open in the 2020-21 season; no reason for the closure is given in the record. The facilities were left in place and the chances of a reopening are described as low. The old 350 m lift line is now occupied by a ski jumping hill, the Itsukamachi Schanze, which is mapped in OpenStreetMap at 37.1206, 138.8955 along with the four surviving chairlift lines and eight downhill pistes - a useful confirmation that the infrastructure is still on the ground. Course names are not compiled in accessible sources; the coordinates mark the centre of the lift network.

Lifts

Sources and further reading

• https://www.snowjapanhistory.com/niigata-minamiuonuma-itsukamachi
• https://www.snowjapanhistory.com/by-year-of-closing

More in Japan

• Akasawa
• Araragi Kogen
• Asahi Tenguston Snow Park
• Chisenupuri Ski Area
• Ciao Ontake Mount Resort
• Family Snow Park Bandai x2
• Geihoku Kokusai
• Hidafunayama Snow Resort Arkopia

Location

37.1222, 138.8920