Shinrin Koen Suisu Mura
A Kyoto Prefecture ski area that could not open for a single day in 2018-19 for want of snow and closed in 2019; its lifts still stand over what is now a tubing park.
- Region
- Kyoto Prefecture
- Country
- Japan
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1984
- Year closed
- 2019
- Reason for closure
- Ageing facilities, competition from a widening choice of other ski areas, and growing anxiety about low snowfall. Decisively, the area was unable to open for even one day during the 2018-19 season because there was no snow.
History
Shinrin Koen Suisu Mura (森林公園スイス村スキー場), the Swiss Village forest park ski area, opened in 1984 in what was then Yasaka Town, now part of Kyotango City in northern Kyoto Prefecture near the Sea of Japan. Three lifts - a 317 m pair and single chairs of 332 m and 208 m - served five courses with a longest run of 1,500 m, a steepest pitch of 30 degrees and 152 m of vertical between a 531 m base and a 683 m top, the terrain rated 60 per cent beginner. Ageing equipment and a widening choice of alternatives had already weakened it when the 2018-19 winter finished the argument: there was not enough snow to open on any day of the season at all, and the area closed in 2019. The lifts are still standing but no longer run. Since 2022 the ground has been used as Snow Dondon Park in Suisu Mura, a family facility offering tubing and snowmobiling - skiing replaced by snow play on the same slope, which is becoming a common second life for small Japanese areas. Course names are not compiled in accessible sources; the coordinates mark the Yasaka district of Kyotango.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Double | 317 m; still in place but not operational | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Single | 332 m; still in place but not operational | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Single | 208 m; still in place but not operational |
Sources and further reading
More in Japan
Location
35.6585, 135.0903