Yuzawa (Akita)
A small Akita city ski area that taught schoolchildren on weekdays and drew just 1,758 visitors in its final season; it closed in 2017 and the lifts have been removed.
- Region
- Akita Prefecture
- Country
- Japan
- Status
- closed
- Year opened
- 1963
- Year closed
- 2017
- Reason for closure
- Declining visitor numbers and ageing installations. Usage figures from 2016 record only 1,758 visitors for the season. One rope tow and the single chairlift had already stopped around 2014, three years before the area closed altogether.
History
Yuzawa (湯沢スキー場) was a small municipal-scale area in Yuzawa City in southern Akita Prefecture - not to be confused with the far better known Yuzawa in Niigata. It opened in 1963 and ran a 434 m single chairlift with three rope tows over four courses, with a longest run of 1,200 m, a steepest pitch of 30 degrees and 120 m of vertical between a 250 m base and a 370 m top. Its function was local and largely educational: it offered night skiing on selected evenings and took school ski lessons on weekdays. The numbers that ended it are stark - 1,758 visitors across the whole of the 2016 season. A rope tow and the single chair had already stopped running around 2014, some three years before the area closed for good in 2017, and the lift infrastructure has since been removed. The same city also lost Oyasu Onsen, recorded separately here, in 2018. Course names are not compiled in accessible sources; the coordinates mark Yuzawa City and should be treated as approximate.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Single | 434 m; stopped around 2014, three years before final closure, and since removed | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | One of three rope tows; one of them stopped around 2014. All lift infrastructure has since been removed | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | The second of the three rope tows | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | The third of the three rope tows |
Sources and further reading
More in Japan
Location
39.1643, 140.4957