Changelog

Ishiuchi Maruyama is on the site

Ishiuchi Maruyama, in Minamiuonuma, Niigata, joins the resort list with 27 mapped courses and 15 lifts, a trail map, this season's lift prices (¥9,400 for a day at the counter), how to get there by Joetsu Shinkansen to Echigo-Yuzawa and the resort's free shuttle bus, a safety page and its snow depth history. Night skiing is planned every night from 26 December to 27 February, then on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays in March, from 16:00 to 20:00 on nine lit runs; the night ticket is ¥3,800 at the counter.

The japow explainer now counts this season's powder days every day

The 'What is japow' article now opens with Japow right now: this season's powder days by region, updated daily, and when each region's first powder day usually comes. A new table lists every resort's powder days, Japow-grade share and snowfall temperature.

Long lift names no longer run into their bars

On a resort's Overview, the lifts chart now makes room for its longest lift name, and a name too long even for that is cut off before its bar, with the full name shown when you hover over it.

Shiga Kogen Kumanoyu is on the site

Shiga Kogen Kumanoyu joins the resort list with 12 mapped runs and 5 lifts, a trail map, last season's lift prices (¥6,500 for a day), how to get there, including one direct express bus a day from Nagano, and its snow depth history. Last season Shirakaba Course was lit for night skiing on 29 nights, 18:30 to 21:00, every night from 20 December to 3 January and then mostly on Saturdays until 28 March. The runs lie on the north side of a ridge of old volcanic rock between two younger volcanic peaks, Kasagatake (2,075.8 m) to the west and Yokote-yama (2,307 m) to the east.

Togakushi is on the site

Togakushi, in Nagano City, joins the resort list with 23 mapped runs and 7 lifts, a trail map, this season's lift prices (¥7,000 for a day, ¥6,500 bought online), how to get there by Shinkansen to Nagano and the Alpico Route 70 bus, a safety page and its snow depth history. The runs spread over Meno-yama and the lower Kenashi-yama, both on the lava of the Iizuna volcano, which was active from about 340,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Karuizawa Prince is on the site

Karuizawa Prince Hotel Ski Resort, in Karuizawa, Nagano, joins the resort list with 14 mapped runs and 8 lifts, a trail map, this season's lift prices (a day costs ¥8,000 to ¥13,000 depending on the date, ¥500 less when bought online in advance) and how to get there by Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo to Karuizawa and a free shuttle. The lifts run almost to the top of Yagasaki-yama, a low hill of old volcanic rock on the south edge of the Karuizawa plateau, whose 1,184 m summit is 27 m higher than the top of the runs.

Dynaland is on the site

Dynaland, in Takasu, Gujo, Gifu, joins the resort list with 22 mapped runs and 5 lifts, a trail map, how to get there by highway bus from Nagoya and a free shuttle or by car from Chubu Centrair, Komatsu, Toyama and Osaka, and its snow depth history. The runs are on the east flank of Dainichi-ga-take, a worn-down volcano whose 1,708.9 m summit stands about 280 m above the top lift. Takasu Snow Park sits on the same flank.

Shiga Kogen Ichinose Diamond is on the site

Shiga Kogen Ichinose Diamond, a small area at Ichinose with 2 mapped runs and 2 lifts over an 85 m vertical drop, joins the resort list with a trail map, how to get there, including an express bus from Nagano straight to Ichinose, a safety page and its snow depth history. The Ichinose Diamond Quad Lift climbs from 1,606 m to 1,710 m.

Iwappara is on the site

Iwappara, in Yuzawa, Niigata, joins the resort list with 20 mapped runs and 7 lifts, a trail map, this season's lift prices (¥5,500 for a day), how to get there by Joetsu Shinkansen to Echigo-Yuzawa and a free shuttle bus, a safety page and its snow depth history. Four runs are lit every night of the planned night season, 19 December to 27 March, from 17:00 to 19:00. On Saturdays, from 29 December to 2 January and on two holiday-weekend Sundays the session runs to 20:00 and West Course is lit too. The night ticket is ¥1,500. Iwappara covers the south side of Iiji-san, the volcano whose north side holds Maiko Snow Resort.

Shiga Kogen Ichinose Family is on the site

Shiga Kogen Ichinose Family joins the resort list with 5 mapped runs and 4 lifts, a trail map, this season's Shiga Kogen all-area lift prices (¥9,500 for a day), how to get there, including an express bus from Nagano straight to Ichinose, a safety page and its snow depth history. Last season the lower Main Slope was lit for night skiing on 57 nights between 24 December and 21 March, 18:30 to 21:00 (20:45 on March weekdays), served by the Ichinose 2nd Pair Lift B. The runs climb the north flank of Higashidate-yama (1,994 m) and stop about 40 m below its rounded summit.

Okushiga Kogen is on the site

Okushiga Kogen, in Yamanouchi, Nagano, joins the resort list with 13 mapped runs and 5 lifts, one of them a gondola, a trail map, this season's lift prices (¥6,700 for a day in top season and ¥6,000 in the early and spring seasons), how to get there, a safety page and its snow depth history. An early-morning ticket covers 6:30 to 8:00 for ¥2,500. The runs are on the northeast flank of Yakebitai-yama (2,009 m), a volcano with Chigo Pond in the small caldera at its summit, and the top of the runs is about 90 m from that summit.

Ryuoo Ski Park is on the site

Ryuoo Ski Park, in Yamanouchi, Nagano, joins the resort list with 12 mapped runs and 8 lifts over a 1,080 m vertical drop, a trail map, last season's lift prices (¥5,800 for a day), how to get there, a safety page and its snow depth history. Night skiing is planned from 22 December to 21 March, 17:00 to 20:00, every night until 3 January and then closed on Sundays, Mondays and the last day of a long weekend. Base Gelande is lit on every night session, and Mid Gelande joins it on Saturdays. The highest run ends 130 m from the 1,933 m top of Ryūō-zan.

Hakuba Goryu night skiing for 2026-27

Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba47 now shows its 2026-27 night season. Toomi Slope and Powder Snow Course are lit from late December to late March, 18:00 to 21:30, served by the Toomi No.2, Toomi Sky 4 and Iimori 6th lifts; the resort says Toomi No.2 and Iimori 6th run on some days only. The slopes are groomed from 17:00 to 18:00 before each session, night tickets go on sale at 17:30, and 3 March 2027 is closed for a private event. The Hakuba47 side has no night skiing.

A storm counts once in Powder Days

Some resort reports record overnight snow under the next day's date, so one storm could count as two Powder Days. Each source's change in snow depth is now dated to the day the snow fell. If two sources cover the same day, the higher-priority source is used.

Depth chart drops sparse half-months

The snow depth curve on a resort's overview rose in April and spiked in early December because a half-month built from 3 readings in 2 seasons was drawn like one built from 194 readings across 12. A half-month now needs readings from at least five seasons to appear, and one that falls short shows as a gap.

Safety page facility list fits on iPhone

On iPhone Safari, the facility table on a safety page kept room for its hidden distance and drive-time columns, so each facility name was squeezed to about one syllable per line at phone width. The name now gets the full width, and the Today tag stays on one line.

Expressway drives follow the resort's own interchange

Driving routes are now drawn through the interchange the resort's own access page names (or the owner's via), the toll is priced for that exact pair with a link that opens it, the expressway route is recommended first with the toll-free mountain road below it under a snow-season caution, and a route the pipeline cannot route this way stays as it was and is queued for review.

Toll-free drives get a snow caution

On a resort's getting-here page, a toll-free drive that stays off the expressway now sits right after its expressway twin and opens with a snow-season caution: the road crosses more mountain terrain, followed by the resort's own heavy-snow facts, such as a designated heavy-snow area, heavy-snow days a season or where chains are required, and a link to winter driving safety. Routes that follow the resort's own access directions carry a badge, The resort's own route.

Every resort now has a safety page

All 40 resorts on the site now have a safety page. Each one lists the nearest 15 hospitals, 10 clinics, 10 pharmacies and 5 dentists in the resort's own town or within about a 30-minute drive of the lowest lift, plus every emergency hospital among them and the nearest tertiary emergency center, with a note when more facilities are in the area.

Safety pages are open at 13 resorts

Niseko, Furano, Nozawa Onsen, Yokoteyama-Shibutoge, four Myoko resorts and five Yuzawa-area resorts now have a safety page listing nearby hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and dentists from Japan's national medical registers, with opening hours, phone numbers and an estimated drive time from the slopes.

Rain risk now measures how much falls as rain

The rain card on each snow report now shows what share of December to March precipitation falls as rain, by water amount, and counts a rain-on-snow day only when snow is lying on the ground, so a snow day with a trace of rain no longer counts as a rain day.

Lotte Arai is scored on its full snow record

A resort with fewer than five seasons of its own snow reports is now scored on its weather station's full record, so Lotte Arai's powder scores no longer rest on two winters; its measured seasons are still one tap away on the snow-depth chart.

Hakuba Sanosaka's Tokyo buses now say who runs them

The JAMJAM Liner and Orion Tour buses from Tokyo on Hakuba Sanosaka's getting-here page now name their operator, link to booking, and explain their booking, payment and ski-luggage rules.

The first-person Ride shows real vegetation at four more resorts

The Ride scene at Hakuba Sanosaka, Kashimayari, Maiko and Yokoteyama-Shibutoge now draws its trees from the national vegetation survey, as the other resorts already did.

See each run's pitch on the map

Turn on Pitch on a resort's 3D map and every run gets a small tag on its steepest stretch showing how steep it gets, such as 37°, coloured from under 15° to 30° and over; the official trail map tab has the same tags behind a Pitch tags button.

Yokoteyama-Shibutoge is on the site

Shiga Kogen's highest ski area, where the lifts top out near the 2,307 m summit of Mt. Yokote, joins the resort list with 11 mapped runs and 7 lifts across the Yokoteyama and Shibutoge sides, a trail map, last season's lift prices (¥7,000 for a day), how to get there from Tokyo, Haneda and Toyama, and snow depth from December 2014 to March 2026.

Kashimayari is on the site

Kashimayari, the southernmost resort in the Hakuba Valley, joins the resort list with 12 mapped runs and 5 lifts, a trail map, this season's lift prices (¥6,200 for a day, with early-bird season passes on sale until 3 January), how to get there from Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Matsumoto and Toyama, and snow depth from December 2014 to March 2026. The runs climb a foothill on the west shore of Lake Nakatsuna, on the fault line that formed the three Nishina lakes.

Seki Onsen is on the site

Seki Onsen, below Mt. Myoko in Niigata, joins the resort list with 5 mapped runs and 2 lifts, a trail map, last season's lift prices (¥4,500 for a day), how to get there, and snow depth from December 2014 to March 2026. The runs sit on the southeast flank of Kanna-san, a peak on the rim of Myoko's explosion caldera.

First-person Rides at three more resorts

Kashimayari, Hakuba Sanosaka and Maiko Snow Resort now have a Ride tab. Drop onto any of their main runs at true scale, on four real days from past seasons, among them a powder day and a bluebird day.

Ride runs carry their reviewed names

At ten resorts the Ride view now names and counts runs the way the reviewed trail map does, instead of showing placeholder names for runs that had since been named or merged.

Hakuba Sanosaka is on the site

Hakuba Sanosaka, at the south end of the Hakuba Valley above Lake Aoki, joins the resort list with 10 mapped runs and 4 lifts, a trail map, this season's lift prices (¥5,700 for a day), how to get there, and snow depth from December 2014 to March 2020. Night skiing starts this season: from 29 December to 28 February, the No.6 Pair lift runs 17:30–21:30, until 22:30 on Fridays and Saturdays, with the Carving and Private Training runs lit, on a ¥3,800 night ticket. The hill the lifts climb is the debris of a landslide off the Nishina range about 30,000 years ago, the same slide that dammed Lake Aoki.

Tips on lit runs and night dates

On a resort's Night skiing page you can now point at one lit run or at the season's night dates when you send a tip or report a wrong figure.

Night skiing at Yakebitaiyama and GALA Yuzawa

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama and GALA Yuzawa now have night skiing pages with their night dates, hours and the lit run on the map.

A night skiing page for each resort

Twenty resorts now have a Night skiing tab with the season's night calendar, the hours, the lit runs on the 3D map and the price of every night ticket.

Tell us when something is wrong, or what you know

A button at the bottom right of every resort page lets you point at one piece of data and send a tip, report a wrong figure, or report a bug.

Each area's night ticket, with its price

At Niseko, where each area sells its own night ticket, the night-skiing section now names that area's ticket and its adult price, and links to it in the lift-ticket table.

Both prices shown when two pages disagree

The lift-ticket table now shows each page's price on its own row, named by the page it came from, when two of a resort's own pages print different prices for the same ticket.

Yuzawa Kogen is on the site

Yuzawa Kogen, in Yuzawa, Niigata, joins the resort list with 13 mapped runs and 7 lifts, a trail map, lift-ticket prices, how to get there and its snow record.

Niseko's 2026-27 prices, area by area

Niseko United now lists 2026-27 prices for Grand Hirafu, HANAZONO, Niseko Village and Annupuri, including the two-area tickets and each area's night ticket, and the price shown first is still the all-mountain one-day ticket at ¥12,600.

Whole-resort tickets compared first

At Shiga Kogen, Naeba and Niseko, the cheapest ticket, the cost per hour and the season-pass break-even now use a ticket for the whole resort before a ticket that covers only one of its areas.

Night skiing checked at seven more resorts

Night-skiing sessions and hours for Akakura Onsen, Hakuba Cortina, Kandatsu, Kiroro, Madarao, Nekoma and Rusutsu were checked against each resort's own pages and now show on their resort pages.

Tangram Ski Circus is on the site

Tangram Ski Circus in Myoko now has its own resort pages, with its runs and lifts, snow record, 2026-27 lift-ticket prices and night skiing.

2026-27 prices for nine more resorts

Hakuba Norikura, Sapporo Kokusai, Ishiuchi Maruyama, Madarao, Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba47, Akakura Kanko, Rusutsu, Sapporo Teine and Geto Kogen now list their 2026-27 lift-ticket, early-bird and season-pass prices, with the date each early-bird price stops being sold.

2026-27 early-bird prices for six resorts

Nozawa Onsen, Maiko, Canmore, Hakuba Cortina, Ikenotaira Onsen and Takasu Snow Park now list their 2026-27 early-bird and season-pass prices with the date each price stops being sold, and Nozawa Onsen's lift-ticket page now shows its full 2026-27 prices.

Next season's early-bird prices, sooner

A lift-ticket page keeps showing the current season until the next one opens, and lists next season's early-bird prices, labelled with their season, in its early-bird section.

Contents list sits above the calculator

On narrower screens the lift-ticket contents list opens in full, above the trip-cost calculator button instead of under it.

Lift-ticket pages lead with the answer

Each resort's lift-ticket page now opens with the cheapest adult ticket for each length, its season passes and its early-bird prices, and every price sits in one table you can narrow by ticket length or by who is buying and sort cheapest first.

Maiko Snow Resort is on the site

Maiko Snow Resort, in Minamiuonuma, Niigata, joins the resort list. Its three linked areas carry 39 mapped runs and 10 lifts, with a trail map, this season's lift prices, how to get there, and snow depth going back to December 2014. Five runs are lit for night skiing, on Saturdays until 20:00 and Sundays until 19:00 through the night season. The mountain the lifts run up is Iiji-san, whose summit stands 199 m above the highest run.

Plainer wording across the site

Page text, resort descriptions, the notes on each mountain and this changelog were rewritten in plainer English and Traditional Chinese. Each rewritten line was checked against a written list of the stock phrasings to leave out.

Akakura Onsen joins the resort list

Akakura Onsen Ski Resort in Niigata has 34 runs over 54 ha, 15 lifts, and a 550 m drop from 1,200 m down to 650 m, with night skiing on one lit run. Two seasons of lift prices sit on the ticket page. The 2025-26 table, with a ¥7,000 day ticket and a ¥70,000 season pass that pays for itself in 10 days, was recovered from the Internet Archive after the resort's own ticket page stopped being captured mid-season; it sits beside the 2024-25 table it replaced.

Video filters look and work like filters again

On a resort's Videos tab the type filters (POV, Vlog, Overview and the rest) rendered as plain text, and tapping one also emptied the slope list beside them. They are chips again and now filter only the videos.

Asarigawa Onsen gets a first-person Ride

Drop into the mountain at true scale and glide its nine main runs at dusk, with the Otaru valley below. The terrain is the same 10-metre survey data as every other Ride.

Lift-ticket tables are easier to scan

Ticket tables no longer end in a list of notes about what JapowDB could not confirm from the resort's page, and a ticket with a single row of prices shows its name once instead of twice.

Akakura Kanko joins the resort list

The Myoko ski area now has its own pages: 11 slopes and 7 lifts, snow depth, lift-ticket prices from a ¥7,000 adult day pass, getting there and nearby medical care.

The site menu is back on phones

Below tablet width the header hid its links with nothing in their place, so Leaderboards, Blog and Changelog were reachable only through search; a menu button now opens every section, and the search button no longer truncates to "Sear…".

Dates, captions and chart axes are easier to read

Secondary text such as dates, captions and chart axis labels is darker, clearing the WCAG AA contrast floor it used to miss on card backgrounds.

Two resorts' day-pass price now shows the ticket a walk-up visitor buys

Hakuba Happo-One read ¥8,400, the re-charge price for people who already own the resort's IC card, where a walk-up day ticket is ¥8,700; Tsugaike read ¥8,000, a web-only day ticket bundled with a ¥1,200 lunch voucher, where the plain day ticket at the window is ¥8,200.

Lift-ticket pages list every ticket the resort sells, in the resort's own words

Tickets are grouped into day, half-day, multi-day, time-based, night, season passes and single rides under the names and pricing periods the resort's own page prints, and a short note says when that page leaves something unstated, such as whether a ticket covers night skiing or who may buy it.

The trip cost calculator prices each day by that day's own rules

A national holiday that falls on a weekday is charged the holiday rate, a night or ropeway ticket is no longer offered on a day it does not run, and a sightseeing-only ride is no longer quoted as a ski ticket.

Lift-ticket FAQs stop naming tickets a first-time visitor can't buy

Hakuba Happo-One's multi-day answer named re-charge tickets sold only to IC-card holders; the FAQ and its multi-day savings figure now leave out any ticket limited to a particular kind of buyer.

Lift-ticket prices re-read and hand-checked at all 30 resorts

Every price was read again from each resort's own ticket page, and every page was then checked by hand against what the resort prints.

Every resort page links to its official website

An Official site button beside Embed and Share opens the resort's own website in a new tab.

Asarigawa Onsen joins the resort list

The Otaru ski area now has its own pages: slopes and lifts, 12 seasons of snow depth, lift-ticket prices, getting there and nearby medical care.

Ishiuchi Maruyama shows its real logo

The resort's own wordmark and icon replace the placeholder across its pages.

Three more resorts name the mountain they sit on

Ikenotaira Onsen, Takasu Snow Park and Tsugaike Kogen now publish a confirmed mountain identity on their Mountain tab.

The preferred-source card remembers when you have already added JapowDB

Once you add JapowDB as a Google preferred source, this browser stops showing the prompt for 180 days instead of asking on every visit.

The ENSO ledger now tracks snow quality as well as snow quantity

A sixth row joins the ledger: the share of a winter's Dec–Feb snowfall that falls light and dry, at a snow-to-liquid ratio of 14:1 or better. The five rows before it all measured how much snow arrived or when; this one measures what kind. Drag the ONI slider and it moves with the rest: in Chubu a strong El Niño takes roughly a fifth of the light snow away, in Tohoku closer to a third. In Hokkaido it reads "no measurable change", like almost everything else there. Each row shows the figure for your resort's own weather station, so Nozawa reads 22% of its snow japow-grade where Niseko reads 70%.

The snowfall chart's quarter-mark is now a shaded block instead of a thin tick

"A quarter of winters fell below" used to be a single thin tick, which invited reading its position as a quarter of the way along the bar. It never was: that mark counts winters, while the bar measures centimetres, and winters are not spread evenly along it. In a neutral winter at some resorts the driest quarter covers nearly half the bar's length. The driest quarter is now shaded as a block, so the three phases sit side by side as areas of visibly different extent, which is what the section is about. The band showing where only an El Niño winter has reached moved to a stripe beneath the bar so it no longer covers that block.

The snowfall chart's gap measurement now points at what it is measuring

The bracket under the snowfall chart compares El Niño's quarter-mark with La Niña's, but the two live on different rows and the bracket was drawn under only one of them, so its right end appeared to point at nothing. Dotted lines now run from each end up to the mark it measures. The sentence below the chart had a second problem: it quoted the two single worst winters while the bracket quoted the quarter-marks, so its numbers could not be reconciled with the bracket's. It now gives both, and says which is which.

Less to read in the ENSO section, and a legend you can match at a glance

The section carried a third more prose than it needed. Everything that explains how the figures were measured (which winters, which weather stations, what “explains 10%” counts, and the sources) has moved into the report’s footnotes, reachable from a single line, so only what you need for reading a number stays on the page. The snowfall chart’s marks were also described in a paragraph you had to hold in your head while hunting for the thing it named; they are now a legend with swatches, matching the season-depth chart above it.

A white slot no longer appears in the El Niño snowfall bar

On resorts where snowfall barely moves with the ENSO phase, such as Sapporo Kokusai, the mark showing the level a quarter of winters fell below was drawn in the page’s own background colour. It looked like a gap cut out of the bar. That reversal exists so the mark stays legible where it crosses the darker stretch on the El Niño row, and it now appears only on the resorts that have one.

Hokkaido snow reports now say why the ENSO rows are blank

On a Hokkaido resort, four of the five ENSO measures read “no measurable change”, which is correct, and looked like a broken page. The section now states it once: only winter temperature moves there, and one unit of ONI shifts seasonal snowfall by −0.1%, which rounds to nothing. The useful part is the conclusion: the Pacific does not set how much snow falls in Hokkaido, and the one measure that does respond changes the snow's quality more than its amount. Chubu and Tohoku resorts, where four or five rows do move, are unchanged.

The ONI slider now shows you which kind of winter you're in

The slider's track is divided into its three named regions, La Niña, neutral and El Niño, and fills the one you are currently in, so you can see where you sit and watch the next boundary arrive instead of finding it by accident. Previously the only guide was two unlabelled ticks marking a line without saying what lay on either side of it. Crossing a boundary used to snap the season-depth chart to its redraw; it now fades through it. That crossing is the moment the chart changes, and the moment it was easiest to mistake for a stuck control.

See what El Niño does to a resort's winter

Every snow report now carries an ENSO section with a slider. Set how strong a winter you want and five measures move with it: seasonal snowfall, snow depth, winter temperature, how often it snows, and the longest dry spell. Each bar shows how far the number moves and whether that direction is good or bad news here, beside how much of the winter-to-winter variation the line explains, so a weak signal reads as weak. Below it sit the six strongest El Niño and La Niña winters since 2000-01, with what this resort's own weather station recorded in each. The slopes are fitted per region and are the same for every resort in it, because the differences between resorts are smaller than the record can measure; the section states that instead of inventing a per-resort number.

The base depth through the winter, half-month by half-month

A new chart under the ENSO section shows how deep the base runs through the winter, in half-month steps from 1 November to 16 April. Depth is measured against each weather station's own typical peak, not in centimetres, so a valley station's timing counts alongside a high one's. Two marked lines sit where a base is half its typical peak and where it is a quarter, and a coloured strip beneath grades the curve against them: peak, tolerable, marginal, dangerous. Move the ONI slider across an El Niño or La Niña boundary and the whole thing redraws for that kind of winter. Across Chubu the base holds half its peak from 1 January to 15 March in a normal winter, and only to 28 February in an El Niño one.

Powder Reliability drops its ENSO term

The score carried a 5% ENSO component, and it gave every resort in a region the same number, which invites reading a difference between resorts that the record cannot support. It is gone, and the other four weights return to exactly what they were before 13 August. 25 of 28 resorts move, by up to 4 points: up in Chubu and Tohoku, down in Hokkaido. The leaderboard's ENSO column and the trip planner's ENSO (beta) column go with it. The regional ENSO claim moved to the snow report, where it is shown as a measurement instead of compressed into a score.

The snow-depth chart no longer draws a "reliable cover" line

The band shading everything above 180 cm was a fixed number applied to every resort, not a measurement of anything: 25 of 29 resorts cleared it at their peak, and it used the word "reliable" for something unrelated to the reliability score elsewhere on the site. What makes cover reliable is a mountain's terrain and ground exposure, not one figure in centimetres, so the line is gone and only the measured curve remains.

Compare and the value leaderboard now quote a fare anyone can buy

Zao Onsen was listed at ¥4,000, which is an elementary-school class group ticket; Kandatsu at ¥3,500, a women-only bundle; Takasu at ¥3,900, valid on one lift. Each resort's own lift-ticket page already showed the real fare, so the two halves of the site disagreed by a third or more. All three now match their own pages at ¥7,500, ¥5,500 and ¥6,000, and the value ranking re-sorted: Zao fell from first to tenth. Tsugaike's advance-purchase price no longer outranks its peak-season pass either.

Palcall Tsumagoi Resort is now on JapowDB

The Gunma resort joins the map with 27 runs, 4 lifts, its 2026-27 ticket prices, and a 730 m drop from a 1,370 m base, the second-highest base of any resort here. Its gondola starts running at 6:30am on Wednesdays, weekends and holidays, ninety minutes before the slopes open, for the sunrise. The resort labels its courses by code, A-1 through D-9, with no names, so that is how they appear.

Make JapowDB a preferred source on Google

Under the forecast on every snow report there is now Google's own "Add to Preferred Sources" button: tap it once and Google ranks JapowDB's snow reports higher in your own search results. The privacy page names Google among the services that see your IP on that page.

The ENSO range chart now marks the quarter of winters that fall short

Each phase's bar on the snow report already spanned its driest to snowiest winter and marked the average; it now also marks the level a quarter of that phase's winters fell below. That is the same lower-quartile figure the ENSO score reads, drawn by the same code, so the picture and the number can no longer drift apart.

Resort-reported depth history is refreshing again, for 18 more resorts too

The source that supplies resort-reported base depth moved sites in July and every resort's history had silently frozen since. The feed is repaired. 18 resorts that carried history back to 2014 but had no way to add to it now refresh with the rest; Hakuba Happo-one, Nozawa Onsen, Zao, Furano, Rusutsu, Kiroro, Tomamu and Sapporo Teine are among them.

Two lifts no longer claim to carry minus one person

Hakuba Happo-one's Jumping Stadium chair and Nozawa Onsen's moving walkway carried a capacity of −1 from the original import and were being served that way. Both now show the real figure.

ENSO Resistance now scores the bad winters instead of the average swing

Resisting a phase means the snow does not collapse when the phase turns against you, so the powder leaderboard's ENSO sub-score now reads each region's lower quartile of winters; it used to read the mean swing. Scores moved for regions whose bad winters are worse than their average suggested.

The leaderboard shows how many powder days a bad winter keeps

A new column on the powder leaderboard gives the powder-day count a resort held in its worse ENSO phase, so a high average can be read against what a bad year delivered. The shared table container was widened so all nine columns fit.

The ENSO panel states its verdict

The snow report's ENSO section now states whether El Niño lowers this resort's floor, shows the three phases as overlapping distributions where it used to show three averages, and qualifies each phase's mean with its own spread.

The leaderboard's ENSO column was rendering blank

The powder leaderboard had shown an ENSO Resistance header over an empty bar for every resort since the sub-score launched on 13 August. The value was computed all along; it now reaches the table.

Resort pages now open with an answer

Google had been building its snippets from the tab strip because the pages went straight from heading to controls. Each resort page (map, lift tickets, getting here and the rest) now opens with a data-backed sentence that answers what you came to ask, and the titles and descriptions say the same.

The powder guide's figures are now checked against their stations

Every number in the Japan powder resort guide is now checked against the station records it claims to come from, and three of them failed the check. The season-snowfall column gave Niseko around 15 metres; the station that reports it has averaged 9.7 across 27 seasons, so the column now carries the measured figure for all six resorts instead of two guesses and three vague words. Furano's snow-season temperature was wrong by nearly five degrees. Two of the six stations named in the source footnote were the wrong stations. The guide also now says plainly that these are valley stations, several hundred metres below the terrain they are quoted for.

The powder guide is written for the season you're planning

The guide's title named a season that ended months ago. It now names the 2026-27 winter, the one you would be booking, and says in its opening line that nothing in it is a forecast: every figure is measured history from 27 completed seasons, 1999-2000 through 2025-26. The reason to read last winter's numbers is that next winter's tend to look like them, and the guide now says so. You no longer have to work out which season it is describing.

Geto Kogen is no longer listed as a resort without data on JapowDB

The powder guide still told readers that JapowDB did not carry Geto Kogen, months after it went live. It is now linked, and the guide states the catch: its nearest reporting station is a town station at 61 metres, far below the terrain, so the numbers on its snow report understate one of the snowiest resorts in Japan. Each of the six ranked resorts now also links straight to its snow report and its 3D map.

A count of the clear days in a winter here

Every winter day since 2000 at all 40 resorts is now classified as clear, partly cloudy, overcast or snowing, and cross-checked against hours of sunshine measured at the nearest reporting station. The resort page states the count for a typical winter and the months those days fall in; the snow report draws every day as a grid. Where the two sources disagree the figure is stated as a range, and where the station never measured sunshine at all the page states that, so nothing implies a check that never happened.

A downgraded clear-day range is now narrow enough to use

The clear-day count is published as a range, in place of a single number, wherever the modelled cloud and the station's measured sunshine disagree. That range was wide enough to cover almost every resort, so it carried no information. It now sits at a grain these figures can resolve.

The 3D map no longer hangs on “Loading”

The map waited for every layer to settle before hiding its loading screen, including a satellite basemap served from outside the site. One slow layer left that screen up over a map that had already drawn. It now clears once the map is up, and says so if the map fails to load.

The Mountain tab's elevation bar now compares mountains

The bar under the opening sentence filled completely on every resort, because it drew each mountain against itself. It now places the lift-served band on the elevation range every published resort spans, so a low mountain reads as low and a high one as high: Naeba covers most of that range, while Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama does not start until three-quarters of the way up it. Hovering the band gives that resort's own base and top in metres.

The forest chapter now says which years the survey walked the mountain

The Mountain tab said every resort's vegetation was read off the 2024 edition of the national survey. The edition is 2024, but the fieldwork behind it ran from 2000 to 2022, and 31 of 40 resorts rest on a single year's walking. Appi Kōgen's ground was surveyed in 2003, 2010 and 2015; Furano's in 2018. The chapter now states those years, so a reader can tell how old the observation is.

The Mountain tab now says how varied the mountain is

A single steepness figure reads the same for a mountain whose runs all sit around 10° and one that ranges from gentle to 30°. A new chapter states the real spread of pitches on the mountain and ranks it against the other resorts, with no adjective and no invented threshold. Sapporo Kokusai's runs range from 7.2° to 13.6°; Madarao's from 3.9° to 29.9°. Resorts with fewer than five measured runs get no chapter, because four runs do not describe a mountain.

Hover any dot on the Mountain tab to see what it is

Three strips of dots on the page looked identical but meant different things: on the dossier and the comparison chapter a dot is a resort, in the new spread chapter it is a run on this mountain. Hovering now names it: "Tazawako Ski Resort · 22.4°" or "Kamoshika Family Adventure Course · 13.5°".

Steepness on the Mountain tab now counts only official runs

The Mountain tab was including unnamed 40-200m connector fragments that are not on the official resort map; the rest of the site already excludes them. With them out, the steepest tenth rises on 22 of 28 resorts, by up to 2.6° (Tomamu 17.8° → 20.5°, Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama 16.1° → 18.4°), and the pitch range is corrected on 21 of 28: Tomamu read 0.4° where its gentlest real run is 4.5°, GALA 0.3° against 5.3°.

Powder Reliability now asks whether a winter holds up

The score's four sub-scores all measured levels: how many powder days, how deep the base, how dry the snow, what the wind does. None of them showed whether that level survives a bad winter. A fifth sub-score, ENSO Resistance, adds that: in El Niño winters Tohoku loses 27% of its seasonal snowfall and Chubu 18%, while Hokkaido loses none (1,069cm against 1,066cm). It is stated by region, because the data does not support a per-resort difference.

A privacy policy, and a switch to turn analytics off

There is now a privacy page in all three languages, reachable from the command palette, and a control that stops analytics for the person using it. The policy describes what the product does: server-side capture goes through one auditable path, deleting an account also forgets the person in analytics, and the routes that touch trips, tracks, plans and profiles state what they collect.

New rider pages keep your locations off by default

On a newly created profile, the two sections that publish where you have been (your ride tracks and the riding-region line in your traits) now start switched off. Your avatar and resort grid still start on, so the page is not blank until you find a setting. Existing profiles keep whatever they are set to; nobody's page changes without them choosing it.

Joetsu Kokusai has come off the site

Its mapped terrain tops out near 926m against a registered summit of 1,017m, a 91m gap, where every other public resort agrees within 50m. It is unpublished until the geometry is re-surveyed, taking the published fleet from 29 resorts to 28.

The slope-count stat was counting connector paths as runs

The terrain-abundance figure on the resort page included unnamed connector fragments, while every number beside it counted only the runs on the official map. It now uses the same definition as the rest of the site.

The Mountain tab reads as one page now

The page sat on its own width with the chapter rail on the wrong side, the identity block had no padding at all, and the cross-section's labels ran into the row beneath. It now sits on the site's grid with the rest of the resort, and its two halves are labelled, the researched half and the section titled "Measured", so it is clear which figures are sourced and which are derived.

Every mountain now says which mountain it is

The Mountain tab now names the peak the lifts run on, the named ground above it, what kind of landform it is, and what the rock accounts for in the measured shape. Researched from Japanese-language sources and the national geological survey, cross-checked against elevation data, and confirmed by hand for all 28 resorts.

The Mountain tab leads with the shape of the hill

The page used to open on how much ground rises above the top lift, a figure that turned out to measure the boundary and not the mountain. It now opens on the mountain's shape: whether it is one hillside or points several ways, which way it faces, and whether the steep ground sits high or low. Nozawa "points several ways at once, mostly north-west, west and north"; Ikenotaira is "one hillside, and it falls away to the east". The compass rose beside it is now weighted by how long each run is, where it used to count how many there are, which is why the sentence and the rose used to disagree on 12 of 28 resorts.

Mountain descriptions no longer use avalanche or treeline wording

Appi and Nekoma described their rock as a "debris avalanche deposit", the correct geological term, which is wrong to print on a ski page where a reader can take it as a statement about avalanche risk. Both now describe the same rock as the rubble of a collapsed volcano. Treeline and forest references were cleared from the same pages; those claims belong to a layer that has not been built yet.

The 3D map hung for anyone who had opened it before

Terrain tiles were cached as permanently unchanging, so a returning visitor kept pointing at a directory that no longer existed while a first-time visitor loaded fine, which is why it read as "stuck again" instead of "down". The tile URL now carries its version, so a new upload can never be served against an old index.

The snow-driving article called its highest lone-driver rate low

Niseko's lone-driver crash share of 7.1% is the highest of the eight resorts in the article, and the article's own reasoning says a high share means the road's geometry is what catches people out. Its section described the range as staying low. Corrected in all locales.

Naeba Ski Resort is now on JapowDB

The Prince resort in Yuzawa joins the map with 24 named runs, 14 lifts, its 2025-26 ticket prices, night skiing until 8:30pm from 20 December, a first-person ride down the mountain, and what 64 creators said about the place. Elementary school children and younger ski free on every ticket type.

The Japan snow driving guide is now in Traditional Chinese

Opening the driving-safety guide in Chinese used to bounce you to the English version. The full article is now published in Traditional Chinese, written from scratch as its own piece, and the old guide links land on it.

Members-only prices no longer stand in for the price you pay

A resort that publishes a members-only rate alongside its regular one could end up with the members-only figure in the ticket table's general row. Furano's ¥5,100 membership rate was standing where its ¥6,500 window price belonged. The two now sit side by side, each labelled, and only the price anyone can walk up and buy feeds the headline figure, the cost-per-hour chart and the comparison table. Furano and Myoko Suginohara are corrected.

Snow report charts were showing the previous season

Switching seasons on a snow report redrew the charts before the new season's data had arrived. The temperature chart kept the previous season's shape until you switched again, and the others drew twice over. All four now draw once, after their data lands, and a failed load no longer leaves them silently sitting on the wrong season.

Naeba's lift ticket prices are up

Naeba's lift ticket page was empty while its prices waited on review. The season's rates are now confirmed and showing, including the Mt. Naeba pass and the Seibu Prince Global Rewards member rate beside it.

Sapporo Kokusai's crash record has been re-derived

The toll-road approach was missing 179 crash records. With them counted, the share happening during snowfall drops from 47.8% to 42.0%, the share after dark rises from 28.4% to 34.8%, and no fatality falls inside the corrected window. The two toll-free approaches are unchanged.

The gradient overlay now shows you the flat bits

The gradient toggle was painted in shades of ink, and the flattest ground, the whole reason to open it, came out so pale it disappeared against the mountain. Flat stretches are now a warm gold that reads at a glance, deepening through amber and bronze to chestnut as the ground steepens, and ground that climbs stands apart in violet. Steeper is still heavier, so the picture reads before the legend does, and the scale stays readable for colour-blind riders.

Station names on driving and transit routes are in Chinese again

Fifty-eight stops across eight resorts were still showing their English names on the Chinese site (New Chitose Airport, Sapporo, Zao Onsen and others), and a few routes named the same station two different ways, which broke the route diagram. Every stop now carries its Traditional Chinese name, and a check now runs over the data so an English name cannot reappear unnoticed.

Driving tolls now show the weekday rate you pay at the gate

The expressway tolls on Getting Here were reading about 30% low across 26 resorts. The source page prices for whichever day you open it, and most of JapowDB's had been read on a weekend, so the published figure was the holiday discount, where a driver is charged the ordinary weekday rate. Every toll has been re-derived from the published undiscounted rate, so the number you budget for is the number at the gate.

See where a run flattens out

Long cat tracks and valley connectors are the thing snowboarders complain about most in Japan, and no site has ever shown you where they are. The terrain map now has a gradient toggle that paints every run by how steeply that stretch of ground descends: the flattest ground glows brightest, and any stretch that climbs is called out in its own colour. The colour shows what the ground does and leaves the judgement to you.

The steepest pitch on the mountain

The Mountain tab has always described how steep a resort typically gets. That average hides the good bit: GALA Yuzawa reads a gentle 15 degrees overall and holds one 40-degree drop on Bronco A. Where the survey is fine enough to measure it, the page now states the steepest single pitch alongside the typical figure. They are two different facts about the same mountain, and neither replaces the other.

Surveyed heights re-read from the finer survey

The figure for how high the ground around a resort rises was still read from the old 30-metre model. All 40 resorts have been re-read from Japan's finer survey. The numbers barely moved: the largest change across every published resort was 8.6 metres, and no resort's description of its own mountain changed as a result. This entry exists because the figure did change, even though you will not notice.

The sea looks like the sea in the Ride view

Coastal resorts render water from the same elevation data as the land, and Japan's survey publishes no height where there is no ground. The Ride view drew those areas as pale snowfield: Ishikari Bay behind Sapporo Teine looked like a flat plain, with gaps where the data stopped. Water is now shaded as water and the gaps are filled, so the bay reads as a bay from the top of the mountain.

Mountain terrain is drawn from 5-metre survey data

The 3D terrain under every map and Ride view was drawn from a 30-metre global satellite model, stretched to look detailed when you zoomed in. It now comes from Japan's own 5-metre aerial-laser survey for 32 resorts, the same data the slope figures are measured from, so ridges and gullies you zoom into are really there. The distant backdrop is unchanged, and resorts without 5-metre coverage still improve from 30 metres to 10.

Tomamu's steepness now comes from the fine elevation model

Tomamu's runs were measured against Japan's 10-metre elevation model even though the 5-metre model covers 98% of the resort; one missing tile outside the ski area had disqualified the whole mountain. Coverage is now judged on the resort's own runs, so Tomamu's 30 named runs are measured at a 10-metre sampling distance instead of 60, and their pitch and vertical drop are finer as a result. No other resort's figures changed.

Slope steepness is now measured from the national elevation model

Every run's steepness was re-measured against Japan's national 5-metre elevation model. The old figures reached 80°, steeper than any cliff you could ski; the new ones top out at 43.9°, so the pitch shown on a resort page is a number you can plan against.

Rides now start at the top of the run

Twenty-three runs across nine resorts were being ridden in the direction they were drawn, which for a few of them was uphill. Every ride now starts at the top and descends.

Every resort has a Mountain tab

A new tab on every published resort: the highest lift-served elevation against the highest ground surveyed nearby, the resort's own terrain portrait as evidence, then chapters on which way the mountain faces, how steep it gets and how it compares with the rest of the site. It replaces the old Terrain page, which was gated on a file check that never passed in production, so the link to it was invisible on every live page for its entire life. The Mountain tab has no such gate and renders for all 28 resorts in all three languages. The Overview keeps a short teaser linking to it.

Every lift now carries its base, top and vertical rise

Lifts have never had elevation figures. Each one is now read from the national survey along its own centreline, using the same source and stamp as the runs, which is what lets the Mountain tab state the highest lift-served point on the hill.

Every resort has its own share image

Sharing a resort link now previews that mountain's own terrain portrait, its logo and its key numbers, instead of the generic site image.

Your rides now have a page anyone can open

Every member gets a public page at /u/your-handle: your identity, the resorts you showcase, your rider traits, a per-resort grid of your rides and your lifetime totals. Rides shown there are clipped to the resort boundary, so nothing outside the mountain (a car park, a hotel, a home) is ever served with them. Every section can be switched off individually.

Signing up takes five taps and ends on your own page

The old flow asked for a handle and stopped. It is now identity, three single-tap questions and a picker of one to three home resorts, exiting onto your live public page. The picker ranks all 28 resorts against your answers; it does not filter, because two thirds of the answer combinations match no resort exactly, and a filtering picker would have shown an empty list most of the time.

Riders are searchable, and their handles are clickable

Members can be found by handle or display name from the command palette, and the rider handles on the community map are now real links with a proper tap target instead of unclickable map labels.

The site remembers which language you read in

Language now resolves per visitor, no longer per URL: an explicit choice first, then your saved preference, then your browser's languages, then English. Pages without a language in their address, such as a rider page, open in the language you last used.

GALA Yuzawa is now on JapowDB

The Shinkansen-connected Niigata resort joins the map with all 19 named runs, 10 lifts, its 2025-26 ticket prices, a first-person ride down the mountain, and what 87 creators said about each course.

Lift ticket prices no longer quote a discount you can't claim

A resort's headline day-pass price could fall back to a disabled-visitor or resident-only fare that an ordinary visitor can't buy. Prices, the cost-per-hour chart and the ticket FAQ now all quote the walk-up fare.

The resort Overview now sits on its own snow

The Storm Register field behind each resort's title now opens out to fill the whole Overview page as you scroll, reading that resort's season from left to right, with every section on its own card above it.

Ride Niseko United first-person, with Mt Yōtei on the horizon

The first-person ride now covers Niseko United: glide the real terrain with the valley villages below and Mt Yōtei's cone in the distance.

The first-person ride now shows the real valley town and distant peaks

Gliding down Furano or Hakuba Happo-One, the actual town on the valley floor and the real distant mountains now appear on the horizon at true scale, instead of empty sky.

Ride the mountain on your phone

The first-person ride now works on mobile with a guided descent and a compact heads-up display.

3D terrain maps are back on resort pages

The terrain tab now loads on the live site. It had gone missing in production because its map tiles weren't part of the deployed build.

Resort overview no longer repeats the same rider video

The rider reports strip on the resort overview now shows one card per video, so the same clip no longer appears twice.

Table of contents on resort pages now opens reliably

Fixed the floating table-of-contents button so it opens on the first tap on the snow report and other resort pages.

Filter the resort list by resort features

Narrow the resort list and map to just the resorts with the features you want: powder, night skiing, gondola access, onsen nearby and more.

Resort overview leads with an at-a-glance highlights panel

Each resort's key traits now sit in a tidy highlights panel next to the stats, instead of crowding the page header.

Tap a resort's trait tag to find every resort with that trait

Trait tags on a resort page (night skiing, gondola access, cold dry snow and more) are now tappable. Each opens the resorts list already filtered to that trait, and you can stack several to narrow it further.

Resort overview charts are clearer and read better on phones

The snow, terrain, lift, price, and getting-here charts on each resort overview were reworked for clarity, with stronger contrast, right-sized proportions and legible horizontal scrolling on phones, and the getting-here section now shows the full interactive route diagram with a full-screen view.

Resort overview pages now open with per-topic data chapters

Each resort overview now runs a vertical sequence of data chapters (snow depth through the season, terrain aspect and steepness, lift throughput, cost per hour of skiing, how to get there, and timestamped rider clips), each charting real resort data and linking to its full tab.

Snow reports now always show the right resort

Fixed a bug where opening one resort's snow report right after viewing another could show the previous resort's snow-depth and temperature figures.

3D resort maps load faster and stay smooth while browsing

The 3D terrain map opens several times faster on first load, returns almost instantly on repeat visits, and no longer slows down or stalls as you move between resort pages.

Request a missing resort from the resort list

If your mountain is missing from the Traditional Chinese resort list, you can now ask for it directly in Discord, and JapowDB will add it first.

Living snow-depth hero on every resort page

Resort pages now open with an animated ink field driven by the resort's real season snow-depth record: deeper seasons look inkier and colder, and snowfall drifts on a shared scale so resorts can be compared at a glance.

Resort overview pages renamed to Guide

Resort overview pages are now titled Guide (指南 / ガイド) across all languages, with a tidier header and the guide preview moved below the opening section.

Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba47 is now live

Full resort profile for Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba47: 40 runs and 17 lifts with an annotated trail map, snow report backed by 27 seasons of station data, lift tickets across all three purchase channels (including the cheaper online recharge), getting-here routes, and creator video coverage.

Weather history refreshed through July

The temperature, snowfall and snow-depth history behind every resort's charts and powder heatmap has been brought up to mid-July, and several resorts that were missing recent months are now filled in.

Winter crash safety on every driving route

The Getting Here drive-safety read (winter crash corridor, snowfall/single-vehicle/night share, heavy-snow correlation) now covers every driving option, including the newly added city-hub drives (e.g. Niseko from Sapporo) and the expressway variants that previously showed a route with no safety panel.

Full route overview on mobile Getting Here

On phones, the route diagram now shows every way in at once. Swipe across the full converging map instead of tapping through routes one at a time, and expand it into a full-screen landscape view with pinch-zoom.

Resort tabs reordered

On each resort page the tabs now run Overview, Snow, Getting Here, Lift Tickets, Map, Videos, so the trip-planning essentials come first.

Getting Here now shows city routes, not just airports

Every resort's Getting Here page now includes how to reach it from the major city hubs (Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya, Sendai) by shinkansen, highway bus, or rental car, alongside the airport routes.

Appi Kogen: how to get there

Getting Here for Appi Kogen now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo and Sendai, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Geto Kogen Ski Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Geto Kogen Ski Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo and Sendai, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Hakuba Cortina Snow Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Hakuba Cortina Snow Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Hakuba Iwatake Snow Field: how to get there

Getting Here for Hakuba Iwatake Snow Field now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Hakuba Norikura Onsen Snow Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Hakuba Norikura Onsen Snow Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Kandatsu Snow Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Kandatsu Snow Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Kiroro Snow World: how to get there

Getting Here for Kiroro Snow World now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Sapporo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Madarao Mountain Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Madarao Mountain Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Hoshino Resorts Nekoma: how to get there

Getting Here for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo and Sendai, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Niseko United: how to get there

Getting Here for Niseko United now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Sapporo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Rusutsu Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Rusutsu Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Sapporo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Sapporo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Sapporo Teine: how to get there

Getting Here for Sapporo Teine now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Sapporo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama: how to get there

Getting Here for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Takasu Snow Park: how to get there

Getting Here for Takasu Snow Park now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Nagoya, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Tazawako Ski Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Tazawako Ski Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo and Sendai, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Hoshino Resorts Tomamu: how to get there

Getting Here for Hoshino Resorts Tomamu now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Sapporo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Tsugaike Mountain Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Tsugaike Mountain Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Zao Onsen Ski Resort: how to get there

Getting Here for Zao Onsen Ski Resort now has complete route options: rental-car drives and train/bus routes from nearby airports and Tokyo and Sendai, with verified expressway tolls, live timetable links, and per-leg rider tips.

Accurate toll links for shared-name interchanges

The one-click toll check on Getting Here now opens the right route when an exit interchange shares its name with another expressway (e.g. 湯沢 on the Kan-Etsu vs Tohoku-Chuo expressways).

Ikenotaira Onsen transport routes

Ikenotaira Onsen's Getting Here now covers driving from Haneda and Toyama (expressway and toll-free options), trains via the Hokuriku Shinkansen with Shinano Railway and Echigo Tokimeki connections, and the direct winter snow shuttle, with sourced tolls, fares, and operator timetable links.

Getting Here route diagram redesigned

The schematic route diagram on Getting Here is cleaner and easier to scan: a tidy lane grid, transport-mode icons (shinkansen, train, bus, car), and unified route cards. Shared stations merge, so multiple origins visibly converge.

Compare routes at a glance on Getting Here

Each route on a resort's Getting Here diagram now ends with a summary chip showing its total travel time, total cost (tolls per car for driving, cheapest fare per person for transit), and number of transfers, so you can compare every way in without reading the details.

One-click toll verification on Getting Here

Every driving route's toll now links straight to the official NEXCO calculator, prefilled with that route's interchanges, so you can check the current price yourself in one click.

Route diagrams on Getting Here

Each resort's Getting Here page now opens with Japanese-style schematic route diagrams, one for driving and one for bus & train. They show every way in at a glance: which interchange you enter and exit the expressway, road and line names, travel times, tolls, and where routes converge on the resort.

Clearer route map

The Getting Here route map now uses a detailed full-colour basemap with terrain, towns, and road networks, making it much easier to see where your drive goes.

Furano expressway route and transport data refresh

Furano now lists both an expressway drive and a toll-free national-roads drive from New Chitose Airport. Tolls, expressway interchanges, and route details were also re-verified across ten resorts, with updated winter crash data on several approaches.

3D map no longer freezes permanently

The 3D terrain map now rebuilds itself within seconds when the browser reclaims graphics resources, instead of freezing until you reload the page.

Getting Here: routes by car or bus & train

Every resort's Getting Here page now splits cleanly into By car and By bus & train. Pick your starting airport to draw that route on the map with its driving distance, time, and both standard and ETC tolls; transit routes list each operator, fares, timetables, and whether a booking is required.

Winter driving-safety on the drive to each resort

The Getting Here page now shows a data-backed winter driving-safety card for the selected route: how many icy/snow crashes have happened on that approach, and how often they occur during snowfall, on curves, downhill, at night, or on heavy-snow days. An accompanying map plots each crash; hover any dot for its date, road conditions, and severity. Built from Japan National Police Agency open data.

Trip cost calculator on Getting Here

A trip cost calculator now sits at the top of every Getting Here page, matching the lift-ticket calculator. Enter your group size and cars to compare the total and per-person cost of each way in (rental car, shuttle, or train), with the cheapest option surfaced.

Expressway is now the recommended driving route

The expressway is now the recommended default when a resort has both a national-road and an expressway driving route. It follows major roads instead of the shortest path, which can cross a minor mountain pass that is slow or closed in winter.

Verified expressway tolls added for 9 resorts

Driving routes for nine resorts now show ETC and standard expressway tolls verified against official toll tables, so the Getting Here cost estimate reflects real fares.

Expressway driving route now draws on the map

Selecting the expressway option in a resort's By car section now draws its route on the map. Previously some expressway routes showed only the airport pin with no line.

Cash and ETC tolls shown separately on Getting Here

Driving routes on the Getting Here page now show both the standard (cash) toll and the discounted ETC toll, so you can see the real cost whether or not you have an ETC card.

New resort: Hakuba Iwatake

Hakuba Iwatake Snow Field is now live, with its trail map, 33 runs and 9 lifts, lift-ticket prices, 12 seasons of snow-depth history, and rider videos.

All leaderboards in one place

Powder reliability and value rankings now live under a single Leaderboards hub, each with a top-3 preview, and you can switch between them with one tap.

Value Index: the best resorts for the money

A new leaderboard ranks resorts by value-per-yen, weighing snow, lift infrastructure, and terrain against the adult day-pass price, so you can see where your money goes furthest.

Tsugaike Mountain Resort added

Tsugaike Mountain Resort is now on JapowDB: the gateway to the Hakuba Valley, with wide beginner terrain, tree runs, and 26 seasons of snow history, trails, lifts, and ticket prices.

Tsugaike reviewer coverage expanded

Tsugaike Mountain Resort now draws on 85 indexed videos and over 100 reviewer observations, plus a more complete lift list, so its slope and condition write-ups reflect what riders report.

Resort maps come alive when you linger

Pause on a resort's 3D map and it eases into a dark, glowing scene. Riders' published runs trace the mountain while a few light up and slide down. Publish your own track to join the community map.

JapowDB by the numbers

The home page now opens with an animated tally of everything JapowDB covers: resorts, skiable terrain, slopes, videos, and weather records.

Hakuba Norikura added

Hakuba Norikura Onsen is now on JapowDB: Cortina's laid-back, tree-run-and-onsen neighbour at the top of the Hakuba Valley, with 26 seasons of snow history, trails, lifts, and ticket prices.

Contour mode on resort maps

The 3D resort map has a new Contour mode. Toggle on elevation contour lines to read terrain steepness at a glance; tighter lines mean steeper slopes.

Clearer, more vivid 3D resort maps

Run lines now pop with a halo and scale as you zoom, hovering a run spotlights it and shows its name, and the terrain reads with more depth.

Hakuba Cortina added

Hakuba Cortina is now on JapowDB: the powder capital of the Hakuba Valley, with 26 seasons of snow history, trails, lifts, and ticket prices.

Disabled-discount tiers no longer skew cheapest price

Lift-ticket cost comparisons no longer treat disabled-discount tiers as the cheapest option. They still show in the price tables, but the trip-cost optimizer leaves them out.

Canmore Ski Village added

Canmore Ski Village (Hokkaido) is now on JapowDB: a small family resort near Asahikawa, with trails, lifts, ticket prices, and ~26 seasons of snow history.

Your profile and public handle

Claim a @handle and set an avatar. Your identity now carries across the app, with your lifetime totals (days, vertical, runs) on a new profile hub.

Season activity heatmap

Your profile now shows a season activity heatmap: every day you rode, laid out across the season at a glance.

Riding profile and skill trends

See your rider profile on your hub: a skill snapshot and how your riding has been trending over time, from your logged trips.

Resorts-visited map

Your profile now maps every resort you've ridden, with a ranked list of where you've spent the most days.

Powder-days heatmap quality filter

The powder-days heatmap now shows simple powder days by default, with a toggle to filter for cold, dry snow quality.

More accurate powder-day counts

Powder-day counts now use a unified snowfall signal, so resorts with distant or low-elevation weather stations (e.g. Myoko) report accurate powder days instead of zero.

Pick and swap resorts on the compare page

You can now choose, swap, and remove the resorts you're comparing right on the compare page, with a searchable picker on each column and an "Add a resort" button, instead of editing the address bar.

Corrected slope counts on the compare page

The compare page no longer counts minor, off-trail-map runs, so each resort's slope count now matches the figure shown on its own page.

Clearer lift lines on the 3D map

Lifts on the 3D terrain map are now drawn as a distinct dashed line with a legend entry, so they're easy to tell apart from the ski trails.

Pull-down to close bottom sheets

Mobile bottom sheets can now be dismissed with a downward drag on the handle, the gesture you'd expect, in addition to tapping outside.

Smoother slope browsing on the videos page

On the resort videos page, difficulty filters with no slopes are now disabled instead of blanking the list, and tapping a slope closes the sheet and scrolls straight to its videos.

Faster-loading 3D maps

The 3D terrain map now loads its engine only when needed, so resort map pages appear far faster, especially on mobile, with a loading indicator while the map renders.

Smoother multi-day trip diaries

Trip diaries with many ride-days stay smooth instead of straining the browser, by keeping only the maps you're viewing active.

2D map fallback on unsupported devices

On devices that can't display the 3D map, resort and diary maps now fall back to a 2D map with trails instead of showing an error.

Your riding profile

A new profile card summarizes how you ride (your terrain ceiling, control, favoured aspect, and a weakness to work on) alongside clearer per-day insights.

Smoother bottom sheets on mobile

The slope browser and run sidebar now open in a consistent bottom sheet on mobile, capped in height with a scrolling body so tall content no longer leaves a gap.

Fixed mobile layout overflow

Fixed pages that overflowed sideways on mobile: the resort video stats row and the resort section tabs now wrap or scroll cleanly.

Relive your runs on the 3D mountain

Each day's runs are replayed on the 3D terrain map. Pick a run to see it traced on the mountain, with the camera looking uphill so the descent reads naturally.

Per-run stats and personal records

Every run now shows a full set of metrics (top pitch, turns, sinuosity, speed and more), plus how it ranks among your own runs, with a badge for your records.

Weather recall for each ride day

Each day in your diary shows a weather-recall card: a powder-day badge, base depth, and that day's temperature and wind, drawn from resort reports.

Easier trip sharing and editing

Share or delete a trip from a tidy bottom sheet, and Save now stays disabled until you change something.

Upload your past ski days

Upload your GPX tracks to build a trip diary. Your rides are organized into trips, days, and individual runs, each with that day's conditions, ride stats, and an elevation profile.

Deleting a trip cleans up properly

Deleting a trip now also removes its rides, days, and runs instead of leaving orphaned entries, and the share and delete buttons work reliably after navigating within the app.

Fixed false 1,000cm snow-depth spikes

Resort-reported snow depth showed misleading ~1,000cm spikes at the start and end of the season for some resorts. These came from a no-report placeholder being read as a real depth and are now removed, so the resort snow-depth chart is accurate year-round.

Geto Kogen lift data added

Added lift data for Geto Kogen, with the lift lines now drawn on the trail map.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama added

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama, the Prince-operated 1998 Olympic sub-area at the north end of Shiga Kogen, is now in the database.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama snow history

Decades of snow history for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama, combining the high-altitude Sugadaira station with resort-reported snow depth so the 1,550m+ terrain isn't undercounted by a valley station.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama lift ticket prices

Full lift-ticket pricing for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama, covering the Yakebitaiyama-area passes and the Greater Shiga Kogen common pass, in English, Japanese and Traditional Chinese.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama runs and lifts

Slope and lift details for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama: five lifts (two gondolas, two high-speed quads, a pair lift) and reviewed run names and difficulty.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama trail map and videos

Japanese and English trail maps for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama with annotated runs and lifts, plus indexed YouTube videos.

Snow report charts load much faster

The snow report's depth, snowfall, temperature and wind charts could hang while loading when switching the season or data source on resorts with long history. The underlying chart data is now about 60% smaller, so they load promptly.

Snow depth chart shows the correct data source

In Resort mode, the snow depth chart now labels its source as the resort report (naming the reporting area, e.g. Grand Hirafu for Niseko United) instead of always crediting the JMA weather station.

Leaderboard scores stay consistent when switching seasons

Fixed a caching issue where toggling the leaderboard's season window (peak / preseason / late / whole) and back could briefly show stale scores from an earlier version instead of the current ones.

Fairer wind 'Conditions' score, now advisory

The Conditions sub-score (calm wind on powder days) now compares each resort's powder-day wind to its own typical winter wind, instead of a fixed threshold on coarse model data that unfairly crushed exposed resorts like Appi, Tomamu and Geto. It is also down-weighted to an advisory 5%, since on-slope wind is the least certain signal.

Resorts table no longer collapses on tablet screens

The resorts table now scrolls sideways on mid-width screens instead of squeezing the resort name column into a single vertical letter-by-letter sliver.

Snow report shows measured resort depth instead of estimates

The snow report's resort depth line now shows only measured on-mountain readings, and leaves a gap where a resort did not report, instead of blending in an estimate from the valley weather station. Resorts with their own depth data now open on that measured series by default, and a label notes where the depth was measured.

Fairer powder reliability scores across all resorts

Powder-day counts now combine resort-reported depth changes with weather-station snowfall, rescuing resorts whose valley station under-reports mountain dumps, and base reliability now uses a smooth coverage scale instead of a hard cutoff. Rankings now reflect snow instead of weather-station placement: deep resorts stay on top, and valley-station resorts rise to fair positions. Recalculated scores carry a "yuki" label.

Niseko United now scored on 12 winters of resort snow depth

Niseko United previously had only a single partial season of depth data, leaving its powder reliability low-confidence. It now carries 12 winters (2014/15 through 2025/26) of daily snow depth measured at the Grand Hirafu area, so it ranks as the deep-base resort it is. The snow report notes the depth is measured at Grand Hirafu.

Geto Kogen snow + weather history backfilled (12+ winters)

Geto Kogen now has both JMA weather data (closest official station: 北上 / Kitakami, 27 winters of daily observations 2000–2026) and resort-reported snow depth (12 winters, 2014/15 through 2025/26, monthly depth tables for Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr, 1601 daily readings). The resort-reported depth is the primary signal for Base Reliability scoring since Geto's mountain (460–1090m) holds materially more snow than the Kitakami valley station (61m); JMA backs snowfall and weather. Snow charts, multi-season comparisons, and the snow report page now render real history for Geto on day one of going public.

Geto Kogen added: Iwate's deep-snow tree-skiing resort goes public

Geto Kogen Ski Resort (夏油高原, Kitakami, Iwate) is now public on the site. It is known across Japan for one of the deepest natural snowpacks (often 5+ metres mid-season) and for its officially managed tree-run zones, Heart Forest, Rabbit, Garden, Summit, Beach and others, which creators talk about constantly. The launch includes the full data set: 14 named courses (A1–C5) with cleaned slope geometry, 5 lifts, 2025/26 lift ticket pricing in EN and JA, the trail map, 86 indexed YouTube transcripts, and 105 slope/zone mentions linking video timestamps to specific terrain.

Tree-run zones now surface on the resort videos page

Resort videos pages now include a "Tree-run zones (not on trail map)" section grouping creator mentions of named off-piste areas the trail map doesn't cover, such as Heart Forest, Rabbit, Garden, and the other tree zones at Geto Kogen. Each zone shows how many videos discuss it and surfaces the same timestamped video cards as the per-slope panels, so visitors can jump straight to creator footage of the zone they're curious about. A footnote calls out that these areas don't have official trail-map geometry, since the resort publishes no boundaries for them and the creators' narration is the only source.

Compare-page floating TOC now lists every metric row

The floating Table of Contents on the resort compare page used to show only top-level section headers (Snow, Terrain, Pricing, etc.) and missed every individual metric row underneath them. Each metric row is now exposed as a nested entry in the TOC, so a single click jumps straight to "Powder score" or "Season pass" without scrolling. The TOC also rebuilds itself when you change the selected resorts, since that's when the table re-renders.

Conditional ticket discounts no longer skew compare-page pricing

Some resorts publish discounted tickets that require a special condition: Nekoma's "Season Pass Companion Discount" (you must arrive with a Nekoma season pass holder), Tomamu's "Hotel Guest" rate, Zao Onsen's "Yamagata Resident Discount", Ikenotaira's "Family Ticket" bundle, and others. The compare page was treating these as the canonical adult day pass and picking them as the cheapest price, which understated the typical visitor's cost. 31 such rows across 6 resorts (Nekoma, Tomamu, Zao Onsen, Ikenotaira Onsen, Kandatsu, Sapporo Kokusai) are now tagged with an eligibility constraint and excluded from the price comparison; conditional rows still appear in the full price tables as informational.

3D resort map now loads instead of stalling

The 3D terrain map on every resort's map page was silently re-downloading the full terrain archive (tens of megabytes) for every visible tile, hammering the network and leaving the map blank or half-rendered. The viewer now reads each tile as a small range request inside the archive, so the map loads quickly and reliably.

Remove (×) button on compare bar pills no longer clipped

The small × button that removes a resort from the floating compare bar was being cropped by the round logo frame whenever the resort showed its logo. The × is now fully visible and clickable on every pill.

Compare page now shows pricing for single-season resorts

Resorts that don't break their season into early/main/late tiers, such as Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick, Tazawako and Myoko Suginohara, were missing their day pass and season pass on the compare page. The pricing picker was filtering only the main-season period and skipping the catch-all 'all season' label these resorts use. The picker now accepts both, and three resorts (Ikenotaira, Kandatsu, Madarao) were re-seeded into the database so their tickets appear. Disability-discount and family-bundle tickets are now also excluded so they don't accidentally become the canonical day pass.

Compare bar pills now show resort logos

On the resorts page, each resort you pick to compare now shows its logo inside the circle of its pill in the floating compare bar. Resorts without a logo on file keep the original colored letter avatar.

Table of contents now shows sub-sections

The floating table of contents on blog posts and long pages now nests sub-section headings (h3) underneath their parent section (h2), with a shorter ruler line and an indented sub-list. Jumping to a sub-section now works directly from the TOC instead of forcing readers to scroll through the parent section first.

Discord banner dismiss now sticks for 30 days

Closing the Discord banner now hides it for 30 days across all tabs and sessions, instead of just the current tab. Two bugs were also fixed at the same time: the banner used to reappear when navigating between pages, and the close button would stop working on every page after the first. Both came from how Astro's view-transitions swap page content; the dismiss state now persists in localStorage and the close button uses event delegation so it stays responsive across every navigation.

japowdb is on Discord: join the powder chasers

JapowDB opened a Discord server for chasers of Japan powder. A banner at the top of every page makes it one click away (close it if you've already joined, and it stays hidden for the rest of your session). The community focuses on real-time conditions, field reports, and trip coordination; in the coming weeks the data pipeline will start auto-posting daily snow alerts, powder-day callouts, and a weekly recap directly into the server so the room stays active even off-season. Look for the 'Talk powder in our Discord' link in the banner below the nav or in the page footer.

Off-season weather card no longer shows stale snow depth

Fixed a bug where resort pages displayed last-recorded snow depth (e.g. Niseko showing 180 cm in May) after the season had ended. Snow data is now gated by two layers: the resort's published operating window (per resorts.json) and a freshness check on the latest observation. When either fails, the resort page hides the weather summary card and the embed widget falls back to a 'Season opens December' note.

Ikenotaira Onsen lift ticket prices added

Ikenotaira Onsen (Myoko, Niigata) now has its full 2025-26 lift ticket pricing on the resort page: 34 priced tiers covering full-day, multi-day (2-day + 3-day), half-day, point tickets, and season passes, across adult / youth / child / senior. Pricing is a single tier (no early-/peak-/spring-season splits), keyed under the canonical whole_season group with the operating window December 13, 2025 – March 29, 2026. Sourced live from alpenblick-resort.com/ski.

Kiroro Snow World lift ticket prices now sourced from the official English page

Kiroro Snow World's 2025-26 prices were previously indexed only from the Japanese ticket page, with English labels back-translated by AI. This update re-fetches the official English ticket page (kiroro.co.jp/en/lift_price/) so all 80 English ticket-name labels are now verbatim from the resort's own EN translations, which are more accurate than the prior AI-derived names and match the resort's own wording. Japanese ticket-name labels were also refreshed from a parallel JA re-fetch. Season-name displays carry trilingual forms (e.g. ハイシーズン／High Season／高峰季).

Rusutsu Resort lift ticket prices now trilingual (current + previous season)

Rusutsu Resort's lift ticket prices now display in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese for both the 2025-26 season (68 priced tiers) and the 2024-25 season (68 tiers from a Wayback snapshot). Coverage includes Early Season 1, Early Season 2, Regular season, and Spring Season, across full-day, multi-day, half-day, top-up, multi-hour, point, and night passes. Season-name displays now read レギュラーシーズン／春スキーシーズン and 正常季／春季 alongside the English originals.

Niseko United lift ticket prices now trilingual

Niseko United's 2025-26 lift ticket prices (70 tiers across Early Season, Regular Season, Spring Season, and Final Season, covering adult, youth, child, senior, full-day, multi-day, half-day, point, and multi-hour passes) now display in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese. English labels remain the canonical scraped source from the resort's EN price page; Japanese and Traditional Chinese are filled in for all rows including the four season-name displays (通常期／早期／春シーズン／ファイナル and 正常季／早期／春季／最終季).

Resort logos now show across the site

Wordmark and icon logos now render on the resort detail hero, the resorts index table, blog cards, the Leaflet map markers, and the resort comparison view. Resorts without a sourced logo continue to fall back to the resort's English name text, so there are no missing-image placeholders anywhere. Coverage will keep growing as the logo sourcing pipeline runs on the remaining resorts.

Embeddable resort widget: paste japowdb snow stats on any site

Every public resort page now has an Embed button that gives you a copy-paste snippet for an iframe widget. The widget renders the resort name, current snow depth + 24h change, vertical, runs, lifts, skiable area, and a season-to-date snow-depth sparkline, all in the same washi style as the site. It updates with the site's daily rebuild, so the date in the footer ("Updated {date} JST") rolls forward each morning. It is available in English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese, and ships with a sibling backlink for SEO so it helps your page rank when other sites embed you.

Share button on every resort page (native share on mobile, copy on desktop)

Resort detail pages now have a Share button next to the Embed button. On mobile it opens the phone's native share sheet (AirDrop, Messages, WhatsApp, Line, etc.); on desktop it copies the page URL to the clipboard and flashes a "Link copied" confirmation on the button. Localized in English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese.

Mobile resort page header cleaned up: the title has room and the map fills the screen

The resort detail page header was cramped on phones: the title would wrap to 3 lines and the location map was stuck at 300px wide regardless of screen width. The action buttons (Embed, Share) now stack below the title with generous spacing, the title gets the full width, and the resort location map stretches edge-to-edge on mobile so you can read the city labels.

Compare table column headers no longer crush long resort names

On the compare page, long names like "Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort" used to wrap to three lines because the column-header logo and serif title were competing for horizontal space. The logo and title in the column headers are now noticeably smaller, so names fit on one or two lines and the columns feel less cramped, which is most noticeable when comparing 3+ resorts side by side.

Kandatsu Snow Resort lift ticket prices added

Kandatsu Snow Resort (Yuzawa, Niigata) now has full 2025-26 lift ticket pricing on its resort page: high-season weekday/Saturday/Sunday day passes, half-day tickets, night passes, season passports, and the 19/20 youth discount programs. Prices include peak and year-end pricing recovered from a mid-season Wayback snapshot, since the resort's live page had switched to spring closing rates by the time JapowDB indexed it.

Madarao Mountain Resort lift ticket prices refreshed with correct Japanese labels

Madarao Mountain Resort lift ticket data has been re-indexed from the resort's own Japanese pricing page (the configured URL was previously pointing at the English version, so the Japanese labels on JapowDB were Romanized fallbacks instead of the resort's own kanji terms). All 42 ticket tiers, from the Mountain Pass (1/2/3-day with Madarao + Tangram access) and the Area Pass hour-based tickets to the night pass and the two season passports, now display the resort's verbatim Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese labels.

Video durations restored across resort video pages

Video durations are back: Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick had all 262 videos showing no duration, and several other resorts were each missing a handful. Duration metadata has been backfilled from the YouTube API, deleted/private videos are flagged so they no longer count as 'missing', and resort live-camera feeds (the perpetual livestreams from Niseko United, Sapporo Kokusai, Sapporo Teine, and Zao Onsen) are now identified as livestreams instead of being reported as missing data.

Embed a resort's live snow data on your own site

Hotels, lodges, travel blogs, and ski-rental shops can now embed a small card showing any public resort's live snow depth, recent 24-hour snowfall, and headline stats (vertical drop, run count, lift count, skiable area). Each resort's overview page now has an 'Embed' button next to the resort name that opens a configurator: pick a language (English / 日本語 / 繁體中文), preview it live, and copy the snippet. The embed pages live at /embed/{resort}/{lang}.html, are noindexed, refresh daily with the snow scrape, and include a sibling backlink so search engines still credit japowdb for the data.

Sapporo Kokusai slope geometry refined (angle, aspect, area)

Sapporo Kokusai's slopes were re-derived from the latest centerline data: slope angle (avg + max), aspect direction, and per-run area_ha are refreshed for the full run inventory. Some runs that previously showed a 0.0° aspect or null area now carry real values. This affects slope difficulty rendering and any future terrain-depth comparisons.

Lift data enriched for Hakuba Happo-One, Ikenotaira Onsen, Kandatsu, Myoko Suginohara, Nozawa Onsen

Five resorts' lift data now carries enriched fields: built years (where documented), manufacturer (where identifiable), capacity per car, lift type, and operating hours by season. Sources are cited per field for traceability. This is part of an ongoing pipeline-wide pass to give every lift its complete biographical record.

Sapporo Kokusai lift ticket prices now trilingual

Sapporo Kokusai's 2025-26 lift ticket prices (19 tiers across Regular and Spring Seasons, covering adult, senior 60+, grand senior 65+, junior/senior high, elementary, preschool, 4-hour, point tickets, Sky Cabin one-way + round-trip, snow escalator) now display in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese. Japanese labels are canonical from the resort's JA price page, English labels come from the resort's EN translation, and Traditional Chinese is filled in for all rows.

Sapporo Kokusai lift data enriched (Sky Cabin manufacturer + seasons)

Sapporo Kokusai's Sky Cabin 8-person gondola now carries its manufacturer (Nippon Cable / 日本ケーブル) and built year (1989, when it replaced the original 6-person unit; it was the third-ever gondola Nippon Cable designed independently). All four lifts (Marchen Quad, Sky Cabin 8, Woody Pair, Echo Quad) now carry Regular Season (9:00–17:00 daily) and Spring Season (9:00–16:00) operating hours. No night skiing.

Tazawako lift data enriched (built years + operating hours)

All six Tazawako chair lifts now carry installation years (Ginrei Quad 1990, Ginrei 1 1996, Kamoshika Quad 2005, Mizusawa + Mt. Kuromori 1992 from the 1992 consolidation), plus Kamoshika Quad's confirmed 5 m/s speed. Regular Season operating hours (weekday 9:00–16:00, weekend 8:30–16:00, no night skiing) recorded per lift. Sources cited per field for review traceability.

Myoko Suginohara & Tazawako lift ticket pricing

Added trilingual lift ticket prices for two more Tohoku/Niigata resorts: Myoko Suginohara (25 priced rows across a regular season Dec 13 – Mar 29 plus a late-season Final pass valid Feb 24 onward) and Tazawako (14 priced rows for the standard Dec 20 – Mar 29 season, including 1-day, 5-hour, 1-ride, and a full season-pass age tier). All rows ship with Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese labels and notes.

Myoko Suginohara & Tazawako: YouTube video durations populated

Backfilled video duration metadata for two more resorts: Myoko Suginohara (157 videos populated, 1 deleted video flagged) and Tazawako (218 videos populated, ranging from 7 seconds to 53 minutes). The /japow:index-youtube health card now shows zero missing durations on both resorts. Tazawako's creator-claim audit reruns clean: 11 Review/Overview videos, 33 atomic claims, 100% dedicated corpus.

Nozawa Onsen: lift ticket prices now display in Japanese and Traditional Chinese

All 29 Nozawa Onsen lift ticket rows previously had only English labels (label_ja and label_tw were null). The Japanese wording was backfilled from the resort's own winter ticket page (Wayback snapshot Nov 10, 2025), then translated to Traditional Chinese, so the Tickets section now reads naturally in every locale (e.g. 1 Day / 1日券 / 1日券 with locale-specific notes). The season grouping was also restructured: 26 regular-season rows are now labelled regular_season (通常期 / Regular Season / 正常季) while the Spring Season Pass rows keep the Spring Season label, instead of leaving the catch-all unlabelled.

Madarao: YouTube video durations populated

All 158 indexed YouTube videos for Madarao Mountain Resort now have duration metadata (ranging from 5 seconds to 53 minutes, median 8 minutes). Affects how transcripts are surfaced in resort guides and any feature that filters videos by length.

Madarao: lift operating hours + ticket season grouped under whole_season

Madarao Mountain Resort runs as a single continuous winter period (Dec 13, 2025 – Mar 29, 2026) with no Early/Regular/Spring distinction. All 9 lifts now carry operating hours (08:30–16:30 daytime; night skiing left unverified per-lift), and all 43 ticket-price rows are grouped under one season definition so Studio renders them as a single block in every locale (通常期 / Winter Season / 正常季).

Joetsu Kokusai brand logo

Joetsu Kokusai (上越国際スキー場, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Trilingual lift ticket labels: Appi Kogen, Zao Onsen, Furano

Appi Kogen, Zao Onsen, and Furano lift-ticket prices now carry fully trilingual labels and notes (Japanese, English, Traditional Chinese), with season names expressed in their canonical Japanese form alongside English / 繁中 displays. This is phase 5 of the trilingual lift-ticket project: the legacy English-only rows are now translated and seeded across all three locales.

Geto Kogen brand logo

Geto Kogen (夏油高原スキー場, Iwate) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Ikenotaira Onsen brand logo

Ikenotaira Onsen (池の平温泉スキー場, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Kandatsu brand logo

Kandatsu (神立スノーリゾート, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Sapporo Kokusai brand logo

Sapporo Kokusai (札幌国際スキー場, Hokkaido) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Nekoma lift ticket pricing

Added trilingual lift ticket prices for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma: 27 priced rows across 11 ticket types, organised by Regular Season (Dec 6 – Mar 27) and Spring Season (Mar 28 – May 6).

Compare resorts side by side

Pick up to 3 resorts from the index using the new checkbox column, then click the floating Compare pill to see them side by side at /compare?resorts=… on Snow, Terrain, Season, and Features. The best value in each row is marked with a ★. URLs are shareable, locale-aware (日本語 / English / 繁體中文), and the comparison is built from the same data the resort index uses, so both pages always show the same figures.

Myoko Suginohara brand logo

Myoko Suginohara (妙高杉ノ原スキー場, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort brand logo

Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort (野沢温泉スキー場, Nagano) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Appi Kogen brand logo

Appi Kogen (安比高原スキー場, Iwate) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Hoshino Resorts Nekoma brand logo

Hoshino Resorts Nekoma (猫魔スキー場, Fukushima) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Takasu Snow Park brand logo

Takasu Snow Park (高鷲スノーパーク, Gifu) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Sapporo Teine brand logo

Sapporo Teine (サッポロテイネ, Hokkaido) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Updated Niseko United brand logo

Replaced the placeholder SVG logos for Niseko United (ニセコユナイテッド, Hokkaido) with curated 600×600 PNG variants for sharper rendering on resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Updated Furano Ski Resort brand logo

Refreshed the Furano Ski Resort (富良野スキー場, Hokkaido) wordmark and icon with curated JPG variants, and extended the resort-logo loader to recognise JPG/JPEG files in addition to SVG/WebP/PNG.

Updated Rusutsu Resort brand logo

Replaced the placeholder SVG logos for Rusutsu Resort (ルスツリゾート, Hokkaido) with curated 600×600 PNG variants for sharper rendering on resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Kiroro Snow World brand logo

Kiroro Snow World (キロロスノーワールド, Hokkaido) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort brand logo

Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort (白馬八方尾根スキー場, Nagano) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Madarao Mountain Resort brand logo

Madarao Mountain Resort (斑尾高原スキー場, Nagano) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Tazawako Ski Resort brand logo

Tazawako Ski Resort (たざわ湖スキー場, Akita) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Zao Onsen Ski Resort brand logo

Zao Onsen Ski Resort (蔵王温泉スキー場, Yamagata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Fixed Myoko Suginohara official site link

Updated the official-site link for Myoko Suginohara from the broken princehotels.com/en/ski/myoko_kogen/ (404) to the live JA canonical at princehotels.co.jp/ski/myoko/.

New resort: Takasu Snow Park

Takasu Snow Park (高鷲スノーパーク, Gifu), Western Japan's largest ski area, goes public with full onboarding: 32 named runs, 9 lifts including the unique 15-passenger SP Gondola, 25-26 season lift prices, and 92 indexed videos with creator-reviewed slope mentions.

Niseko United inactive magic carpets named

Assigned 'Magic Carpet (inactive)' placeholders to two unnamed, inactive magic carpet lifts (osm_way_id 1155795494 and 1368331021) so the lifts-named pipeline check passes without a full review-lifts cycle.

Creator opinion claims extended to 3 more resorts

Indexed 210 atomic creator opinions from 40 Review/Overview YouTube videos at Ikenotaira Onsen, Madarao, and Tazawako, which brings all 17 indexed resorts to full coverage (1,439 claims across 299 videos).

YouTube claim quality audit + cross-resort comparison index

Added a post-extraction quality audit (Step 5c) that flags low-relevance videos, duplicate transcripts, channel bias, and cross-resort false positives. Routes multi-resort comparison videos into a new index that will power future reviewer-comparison product surfaces.

Metric glossary substitution in guide prose

Guide prose can now reference metrics by short keys that expand into full names with hover-explainers at render time, keeping copy concise without sacrificing precision.

Creator opinion claims extracted across 14 resorts

Mined 1,229 atomic creator opinions from 259 Review/Overview YouTube videos across 14 resorts to power the upcoming creator-consensus guide section.

Niseko United lift ticket prices reviewed

Reviewed and verified 70 lift ticket prices for Niseko United: 66 confirmed, 4 rejected as not applicable.

Rusutsu lift operating hours corrected

Corrected nighttime skiing eligibility: only West No.1 and West No.2 Quad operate at night; daytime closing times reduced to 16:00 for non-illuminated lifts.

Sapporo Teine lift ticket prices added

Indexed 113 lift ticket prices for the 2025–26 season at Sapporo Teine.

Geto Kogen resort data added

Added slopes, lifts, and climate data for Geto Kogen ski resort in Iwate.

"What is Japow?" article updated with richer FAQ and comparison data

Added two new FAQ entries (Japanuary and Japan vs Utah powder), a four-region snowfall comparison table, and improved section headings to match common search queries.

Lift ticket prices added for Rusutsu Resort and Sapporo Teine

2025/26 season lift ticket prices are now available for Rusutsu Resort and Sapporo Teine, including day passes and multi-day options across age groups.

Ikenotaira Onsen: slopes, lifts, and trail map added

Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick now has full slope and lift data, including named runs with difficulty and length, and an annotated trail map.

New article: What is Japow?

A data-backed deep dive into why Japan produces some of the world's best powder snow, covering the Siberian High, Sea of Japan moisture, orographic lift, and 20+ years of historical snowfall data across 11 resorts.

Japow mechanism diagram in the What is Japow article

The What is Japow article now includes an animated infographic explaining the three-step mechanism behind japow powder: Siberian High cold air, Sea of Japan moisture pickup, and windward orographic lift.

Resort card at the end of articles

Blog articles can now feature an editorial resort card showing summit elevation, vertical drop, skiable area, and season window, with direct links to the snow report and trail map.

3D terrain maps now load at wider zoom levels

Terrain elevation data for all 16 resorts now covers zoom levels 9–16, allowing the 3D map to show terrain context when zoomed further out.

Mobile nav replaced with Search & Navigate

On mobile, nav links are replaced by a single Search & Navigate button that opens the quick-navigation panel.

Search dialog now supports Japanese

The search dialog shows Japanese resort, slope, and lift names when browsing in Japanese, and all UI labels are translated.

Powder leaderboard shows correct names in all languages

Resort names on the powder leaderboard were blank in Japanese. Names now correctly display in Japanese and Chinese when switching seasons.

Niseko United: YouTube video index added

226 YouTube videos indexed for Niseko United, with 82 slope mentions confirmed across 46 runs.

Niseko United: terrain and lift data added

Full slope and lift data for Niseko United is now available, including trail map regions for all four resort areas.

Japanese locale launched

The site is now available in Japanese at /ja/. All pages are fully translated: resort overview, snow report, terrain map, videos, and the powder leaderboard.

Trail map annotated for Nozawa Onsen

All 48 runs at Nozawa Onsen are now linked to the trail map, making the interactive map fully annotated.

YouTube videos indexed for Hakuba Happo-One

102 YouTube videos for Hakuba Happo-One now have summaries, video types, and slope mentions, with 13 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Sapporo Kokusai

80 YouTube videos for Sapporo Kokusai now have summaries, video types, and slope mentions, with all 8 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Nozawa Onsen

115 YouTube videos for Nozawa Onsen now have summaries, video types, and slope mentions, with 19 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Sapporo Teine

78 YouTube videos for Sapporo Teine now have summaries and slope mentions, with 11 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Zao Onsen

93 YouTube videos for Zao Onsen now have summaries and slope mentions, with 6 named slopes identified across rider footage.

Video type badges for Tomamu

Videos for Tomamu are now tagged as POV, Vlog, Overview, Review, or Other, so you can find the right type of footage faster.

Video type badges for Nekoma, Appi Kogen, Kiroro

Videos for Nekoma, Appi Kogen, and Kiroro are now tagged as POV, Vlog, Overview, Review, or Other, so you can find the right type of footage faster.

Video type badges for Furano, Rusutsu, Myoko Suginohara

Videos for Furano, Rusutsu, and Myoko Suginohara are now tagged as POV, Vlog, Overview, Review, or Other, so you can find the right type of footage faster.

Cleaner video cards with duration overlay

Video cards now show duration directly on the thumbnail (like YouTube), and the stats row is easier to read with views and year separated cleanly from channel info.

Video page redesigned as a terrain scouting tool

The per-resort video page is now organised by slope: browse featured runs with stats and rider excerpts, filter by difficulty, and jump directly to videos for any slope you want to scout.

New Terrain tab with run table

Resorts with slope data now show a Terrain tab where you can explore every run's length, vertical drop, angle, and aspect, and jump straight to related videos.

Snow report sections now explain what the data means for your trip

Each section on the snow report page now has a short description explaining what the data shows and how to use it when planning a trip.

Map sidebar now shows both slope length and vertical drop

Each run in the terrain map sidebar now shows both its slope length (↔) and vertical drop (↓), making it easier to compare runs at a glance.

Kandatsu: japow index now showing correctly

Kandatsu's powder quality index was missing due to ERA5 climate data not being imported on launch. Now fixed.

Kandatsu Ski Resort now live

Kandatsu Ski Resort in Niigata is now publicly accessible on the site.

Nozawa Onsen: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

115 YouTube videos indexed for Nozawa Onsen, with 50 slope mentions confirmed across 21 slopes.

Sapporo Kokusai: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

183 YouTube videos indexed for Sapporo Kokusai, with 24 slope mentions confirmed across 7 slopes.

Hakuba Happo-one: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

102 YouTube videos indexed for Hakuba Happo-one, with 48 slope mentions confirmed across 13 slopes.

Myoko Suginohara: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

157 YouTube videos indexed for Myoko Suginohara, with 25 slope mentions confirmed across 14 slopes.

Kandatsu: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

149 YouTube videos indexed for Kandatsu, with 54 slope mentions confirmed across 17 slopes.

Madarao Kogen: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

158 YouTube videos indexed for Madarao Kogen, with 80 transcripts analyzed. 26 slope mentions confirmed across 17 slopes.

Hakuba Happo-one: trail map annotation complete

All 47 slopes and lifts (26 runs + 21 lifts) at Hakuba Happo-one Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Madarao Kogen: trail map annotation complete

All 46 slopes and lifts (37 runs + 9 lifts) at Madarao Kogen Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Myoko Suginohara: trail map annotation complete

All 20 slopes and lifts (15 runs + 5 lifts) at Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Tazawako: full terrain data now available

Tazawako Ski Resort now has 18 slopes with DEM statistics, 6 lifts, annotated trail map with 21 regions, and 218 YouTube videos indexed.

Madarao: terrain data now available

Madarao Kogen now has 93 slopes with DEM statistics and 14 lifts. Trail map annotation is in progress.

Sapporo Teine: YouTube video index added

231 YouTube videos for Sapporo Teine have been indexed with 65 slope mentions reviewed.

Rusutsu Resort: YouTube video index added

90 YouTube videos for Rusutsu Resort have been indexed with 67 slope mentions reviewed.

Appi Kogen: trail map optimised

Appi Kogen's trail map has been optimised and pinned to the 2024–25 season layout.

Nekoma: trail map annotation complete

All 49 slopes and lifts (36 runs + 13 lifts) at Nekoma Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Furano: trail map annotation complete

All 38 slopes and lifts (29 runs + 9 lifts) at Furano Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Tomamu: trail map annotation complete

All 36 slopes and lifts (30 runs + 6 lifts) at Hoshino Resort Tomamu have been annotated on the trail map.

Sapporo Teine: trail map annotation complete

All 27 slopes and lifts (16 runs + 11 lifts) at Sapporo Teine have been annotated on the trail map.

Kiroro Snow World: trail map annotation complete

All 32 slopes and lifts (23 runs + 9 lifts) at Kiroro Snow World have been annotated on the trail map.

Rusutsu Resort: trail map annotation complete

All 56 slopes and lifts (38 runs + 18 lifts) at Rusutsu Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Zao Onsen: YouTube video index added

213 videos with transcripts were analyzed for slope mentions across Zao Onsen: 21 confirmed mentions covering 5 named runs, including Zange-zaka Juhyo Course, Yokokura no Kabe (38°), and Kurohime Connection.

Myoko Suginohara: YouTube video index added

81 videos with transcripts were analyzed for slope mentions across Myoko Suginohara's 15 named runs: 31 confirmed mentions covering 14 of 15 slopes.

Powder Reliability Leaderboard

The new leaderboard ranks all resorts by historical powder reliability across four season windows: peak, pre-season, late-season, and whole season. Scores combine powder day frequency, base depth reliability, snow quality, and weather conditions.

Formula explanation redesigned as cards

The scoring formula section on the leaderboard is now displayed as a 2-column card grid, with each metric's name, weight, and description clearly separated.

Valley station warning on leaderboard

Resorts whose JMA weather station sits more than 300 m below the ski area now show a dotted underline on their name. Hover to see the elevation gap. Powder day counts at these resorts may be underestimated.

Base Reliability now uses on-mountain snow depth

Base Reliability scores now use resort-reported snow depth instead of the JMA valley station depth, which was systematically too low for Honshu resorts like Zao and Appi Kogen.

Snow Quality and Conditions scores fixed

Snow Quality and Conditions were showing 0 for all resorts due to a date format mismatch when merging ERA5 temperature and wind data. Scores now reflect actual conditions.

Nekoma YouTube slope mentions indexed

Indexed 77 YouTube videos for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma, identifying 29 slope mentions across 10 named runs.

Richer chart tooltips

Chart tooltips now appear as a card above the data, with labeled rows, historical context, and color-coded primary values.

Rain Risk now shows ENSO phase breakdown

The Rain Risk section now includes an ENSO impact breakdown showing how rain risk varies between La Niña, Neutral, and El Niño years, with rain percentage and warm rain events per season for each phase.

Rain Risk section on snow report pages

The new Rain Risk section shows the percentage of precipitation days with rain by month, plus warm rain event frequency, so Honshu and Hokkaido reliability can be compared.

Floating table of contents on snow report pages

A floating navigation widget on snow report pages lets you jump between sections with one click. On desktop it is a ruler on the left edge; on mobile it is a button at the bottom right.

Unified section headings across snow report

All section headings on the snow report page now use a shared SectionHeader component for consistent typography.

Snow & Weather section layout redesigned

Data source toggle moved inside the Snow Depth chart header. Season selector and ENSO badges now stack vertically below the section title for a cleaner layout.

Japow Index: a powder quality rating for every resort

New Powder Quality section on snow report pages and Japow column on the resorts table. It uses the Kuchera method to estimate snow-to-liquid ratio from snowfall temperature; a higher SLR means lighter, drier powder.

Temperature charts now use resort-level ERA5 data

Temperature charts on snow report pages now show ERA5 reanalysis data at resort mid-point elevation instead of low-altitude JMA station data, giving a more accurate picture of on-mountain conditions.

Resort stats now exclude minor slopes

Run count, longest run, and max slope angle on resort overview pages now exclude minor (unnamed) slopes, showing only official named courses for accurate stats.

Videos page slope nav becomes a bottom drawer on mobile

On mobile devices, the slope navigation list now slides up as a bottom drawer instead of taking up the full top of the page, giving more space to video content.

Appi Kogen YouTube video index live

Appi Kogen now has 116 indexed YouTube videos with 59 transcripts and 31 slope mentions across 16 videos, powering the Videos tab.

Snow & Weather charts now default to JMA station data

The Snow & Weather section now shows JMA AMeDAS station data by default for more consistent historical comparison. Resort-reported data is still available via the toggle.

Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort now live

Sapporo Kokusai is now available with 3D terrain map, 28 slopes, 4 lifts, trail map annotations, and 25+ years of JMA snow data from the Koganeyu station.

Kiroro Snow World Chinese name corrected

Fixed the Traditional Chinese name for Kiroro Snow World from 基羅羅 to the correct 喜樂樂.

Furano Ski Resort YouTube video index live

Furano now has 77 indexed YouTube videos with summaries and 94 confirmed slope mentions across 27 courses, powering the new Videos tab with rider quotes and timestamped references.

Blog snow charts now use a fixed Y-axis for easier comparison

Snow depth charts in blog posts now share the same 200cm scale, making it easier to compare snowfall across resorts at a glance.

Latest updates marquee on resorts page

The resorts page now shows a cycling pill above the title with the latest site updates, fading between recent changelog entries.

Sidebar slopes and lifts now sorted naturally

Slopes within each difficulty group and lifts within each type now sort by name with proper number ordering (e.g. 5 before 30, UC1 before UC10).

Zao Onsen terrain data and trail map live

Zao Onsen now has full 3D terrain with 81 slopes across 14 areas, 39 lifts, and interactive trail map annotations for both Japanese and English maps.

Polygon zone support for tree runs and terrain parks

Tree run zones and terrain parks now render as semi-transparent filled areas on the 3D map, with dedicated sidebar section showing zone type and area. Zones are clickable and display zone-specific stats instead of slope stats.

Appi Kogen terrain data and trail map live

Appi Kogen now has full 3D terrain with 42 slopes (including 5 tree run zones), 8 lifts, and interactive trail map annotations for both Japanese and English maps.

Snow data source toggle now updates charts immediately

Switching between Resort and JMA snow data on the snow report page now visually updates the snow depth and snowfall charts right away. Previously the charts could appear stuck on Resort data until you changed the season.

3D terrain and slope stats live for Hakuba Happo-One

The 3D terrain view for Hakuba Happo-One is now available: interactive satellite map, per-slope elevation, vertical drop, and average/max slope angles for all 39 runs.

Official trail maps added for Hakuba, Kiroro, and Nozawa

The 'Official trail map' view now works for Hakuba Happo-One, Kiroro Snow World, and Nozawa Onsen, joining Furano Ski Resort.

Switch replaces 3D/trail map tabs on resort map pages

Toggling between the 3D view and the official trail map is now a single 'Official trail map' switch instead of two tabs: smaller, clearer, and keyboard-accessible.

Sidebar and trail map now stay in sync when selecting a slope

Clicking a slope in the sidebar zooms and centers it on the official trail map; clicking a slope on the trail map scrolls and highlights its row in the sidebar.

Softer, warmer slope selection highlight

Selected slopes on both the 3D map and the official trail map now use a warm clay tone with a soft gradient glow, which is easier on the eyes and clearly distinct from the green/blue/red difficulty colors.

Clickable official trail map for Furano Ski Resort

Every slope and lift on Furano's official trail map is now clickable. Tapping a course on the trail map opens its details and keeps the selection when you switch to the 3D view. 25 slopes and 9 lifts are mapped.

Added detailed slope and lift data for Hakuba Happo-One

Hakuba Happo-One now has reviewed 3D slope centerlines, lift details, and 2025–26 trail maps, enabling the upcoming 3D terrain view and per-slope stats for the resort.

Official trail map tab on resort map page

Resort map pages now have a tab toggle between 3D View and the official Trail Map. Clickable polygon regions on the trail map open the same sidebar as the 3D view, so selection state is shared between tabs.

7-day snow forecast on every resort's snow report

Each resort's snow report page now shows a 7-day weather forecast at the top. Powered by Open-Meteo with mountain-elevation adjustment, each day shows temperature range, snowfall, feels-like, humidity, wind, and visibility. Toggle between °C and °F.

Fixed redirect links on every page

The footer link and social sharing images pointed to japowdb.com instead of www.japowdb.com, causing unnecessary 307 redirects on every page. Every page now links to www.japowdb.com directly.

Fixed canonical and hreflang URLs on blog and videos pages

Corrected canonical and hreflang tags that were generating double-locale URLs (e.g. /en/en/blog/...), which could confuse search engines. Also restored bullet point styles in blog articles.

Easier slope list expand on mobile

The slope list bottom sheet on the 3D map page now has a larger touch target and tapping the header also expands it.

Floating table of contents for blog

Blog articles now have a Substack-style floating table of contents. On desktop it appears as a ruler on the left edge reflecting the article structure; on mobile it's a bottom-right button. Click a heading to smooth-scroll with a highlight effect.

Blog articles in search

Blog articles now appear in the Cmd+K search results. Search by title, description, or tags to find articles quickly.

Mobile navigation shows all links

The mobile header now displays Resorts, Blog, and Changelog links instead of hiding them. The search button is compact to save space.

Responsive snow depth chart in blog

The snow depth chart in blog articles now adapts to the screen width instead of using a fixed size, eliminating empty space on mobile.

Share slope route with auto-play

Share a link to any slope or multi-slope route on the 3D map. Recipients see the selected slopes and the slide animation starts automatically.

Nozawa Onsen terrain data

Added slope and lift data for Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort, including 48 official runs across all areas and 19 lifts, and its 3D terrain map is now live.

Faster slope slide animation

Doubled the slide-down-slope animation speed on the 3D terrain map so the ride plays more smoothly.

Kiroro Snow World terrain data

Added slope and lift data for Kiroro Snow World, including 50 runs across Asari, Nagamine, and Yoichi areas, plus 10 lifts with capacity data, and its 3D terrain map is now live.

Myoko Suginohara terrain data

Added slope and lift data for Myoko Suginohara ski resort, including 17 official runs and lift operating hours with weekday, weekend, and night skiing schedules.

3D Map column in resort table

The resort table now shows which resorts have a 3D terrain map available, with a direct link to the map page. Region and season columns were removed to reduce clutter.

Nekoma terrain map data

Added slope, lift, and terrain data for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma with 26 runs and 7 lifts.

Tomamu 3D terrain map data

Added slope, lift, and terrain data for Hoshino Resorts Tomamu, enabling the 3D interactive terrain map with 33 runs and 6 lifts.

Hide minor runs from terrain map

Minor runs (connector paths, service roads, and duplicate OSM segments) are no longer drawn on the 3D terrain map or listed in the sidebar.

Site-wide search with ⌘K

Press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K) anywhere on the site to open a search palette and jump straight to any resort, slope, lift, or page. Fuzzy matching works across English, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese names, with grouped results and full keyboard navigation.

Rusutsu Resort 3D terrain map now live

Rusutsu Resort now has a full 3D terrain map with 38 reviewed runs across all 3 mountains (West, East, Isola) and 18 lifts. Browse runs by difficulty, click any slope or lift for detail panels, and explore the resort layout in first-person.

Interactive lifts on 3D terrain map

Lifts are now clickable and labeled on the 3D terrain map. Each lift type has a distinct color, and a new Lifts section in the sidebar lets you browse lifts grouped by type. Clicking a lift flies to it and shows a detail panel with length and capacity.

Resort location map shows distance to nearest city

The overview page now shows a Japan map with the resort's distance and elevation difference from the nearest major city (e.g., '131 km from Sapporo · Resort base 219 m above Sapporo').

Terrain page renamed to Map

The terrain page URL changed from /terrain/ to /map/ with an SEO-optimized title and description for better search visibility.

Dedicated Snow Report page

Snow charts, powder heatmap, snow strip, and ENSO analysis moved from the resort overview to a dedicated Snow Report page. Overview page becomes a compact hub with resort stats and a snow condition summary card linking to the full report.

Resort sub-navigation tabs and 2D/3D terrain toggle

Sticky tab bar under the main navbar for switching between resort sections (Overview, Terrain). Added a 2D/3D toggle button on the terrain map that flattens the view by easing pitch to 0 and hiding hillshade.

Fix mobile terrain page layout

Fixed terrain map not showing on mobile. Map now gets a fixed 500px height, sidebar renders as bottom sheet overlay. Legend rearranged to horizontal row and page padding reduced for more screen real estate.

Slope-adaptive slide speed and route stats

Slide-down speed now varies with terrain: it accelerates on steep slopes (up to 2x) and decelerates on flats. Route stats (total length, avg slope, max slope) are shown when building a route.

Sortable slope data table on terrain page

Full slope data table below the 3D map with sortable columns: trail code, name, difficulty, length, drop, slope angles, aspect, and surface type. Includes a locate button to jump to any slope on the map.

Fullscreen mode for terrain map

Added a fullscreen button to the terrain map controls that expands the sidebar and map to fill the entire screen.

Slope journey slide-down simulation

Build a multi-run route and slide down in first-person. Select runs via sidebar checkboxes or by clicking slopes on the map, auto-ordered by elevation. Camera glides along the chained centerlines with smooth bearing transitions and adjustable speed (1x-5x).

Terrain map UX overhaul: sidebar, camera controls, satellite imagery

Run sidebar grouped by difficulty with highlight-and-zoom selection, first-person camera at slope top looking downhill, satellite imagery toggle (GSI), elevation labels, fog/atmosphere for depth, and smoother DEM tiles (z16 cubic).

3D terrain map for ski resorts

New terrain page with 3D MapLibre GL map showing DEM elevation data, slope runs color-coded by difficulty, lift lines, and a fly-to first-person slope view.

Added Joetsu Kokusai Ski Resort and completed Takasu Snow Park data

Joetsu Kokusai (上越国際スキー場, Niigata) has been added with 25+ years of historical snow depth and weather data; Takasu Snow Park historical snow depth data is now also complete.

Improved search engine visibility

Resort pages now include structured data (SkiResort schema) for rich search results, and all pages have more descriptive titles and meta descriptions.

Faster navigation to resort list

Visiting japowdb.com now lands directly on the resort list with no redirect delay or loading text.

Snow depth chart Y-axis stays fixed when switching data sources

The snow depth chart no longer rescales when switching between resort reports and JMA station data. Both sources now share the same Y-axis range so comparisons are easier.

Daily snow conditions now sourced from resort reports

The Daily Condition panel on resort pages now shows snow depth, snowfall, snow quality, and ski condition directly from resort-published data instead of third-party weather forecasts.

Smoother resort snow depth curves for season edges

November–December 14 and April snow depth values in the resort chart are now derived from the JMA calibration model instead of raw resort reports, which are unreliable at season open and close.

Snow depth chart extended back to year 2000

Resort snow depth charts now show up to 25 seasons of history (2000–2026) for calibrated resorts. Pre-2014 values are estimated from JMA weather station data using a linear model fitted on the 2014–2026 resort-reported overlap period.

Better snow data for resorts with nearby backup stations

For resorts whose primary JMA station does not report snow depth, the site now fills each missing date from a nearby secondary station.

Sapporo Teine, Tazawako, Hakuba Happo-one, and Nozawa Onsen now live

Fixed missing snow data for Sapporo Teine and Tazawako by reassigning their primary JMA stations to ones that measure snow depth, and made all four resorts publicly visible.

JMA data added for Hakuba, Nozawa Onsen, Sapporo Teine

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Hakuba (Hakuba Happo-one), Nozawa Onsen, and Yamaguchi/Sapporo (Sapporo Teine), enabling historical charts for these resorts.

Hakuba Happo-one and Nozawa Onsen added

Hakuba Happo-one and Nozawa Onsen are now listed as tracked resorts with full historical snow data.

Resort map labels and hover previews

The Japan resort map now shows resort name labels next to each pin, and hovering a pin previews the resort's snow depth without needing to click.

Footnote-style stat explanations

Stat and chart info icons now link to numbered footnotes at the bottom of the page instead of hover tooltips, making them readable on mobile.

Changelog page

A new public changelog page at /changelog lists all site updates by date, so you can see what's new at a glance.

Japan resort map

Interactive map of Japan on the resorts page showing all tracked ski resorts, so you can explore and navigate by location.

JMA data added for Zao Onsen, Madarao, Tazawako

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Zao Onsen (Yamagata), Madarao (Shinano-machi), and Tazawako (Tazawa and Kakunodate stations).

13 Japanese ski resorts published

Thirteen ski resorts are now publicly available: Niseko United, Rusutsu, Furano, Tomamu, Kiroro, Sapporo Teine, Nekoma, Zao Onsen, Tazawako, Appi Kogen, Madarao, Myoko Suginohara, and Ikenotaira Onsen.

Station–resort elevation difference

Each resort page now shows the elevation difference between the weather station and the resort, so you can judge how representative the snow data is.

JMA data added for Kiroro, Niseko, Nekoma, Myoko, Ikenotaira, Appi Kogen

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Kiroro (Akaigawa), Niseko United (Kutchan), Nekoma (Inawashiro), Myoko Suginohara and Ikenotaira Onsen (Sekiyama), and Appi Kogen (Iwate-Matsuo).

Station & resort location map

Interactive map on each resort page showing the weather station and resort location relative to each other.

Site favicon

Added a favicon so the site is easier to find in browser tabs and bookmarks.

Snowfall consistency strip

Visual strip showing how consistently snow fell across the season, day by day.

Powder threshold selector

Adjust the daily snowfall threshold used to define a 'powder day' on the heatmap.

Powder heatmap tooltips

Hover tooltips on the powder day heatmap now show snow depth and daily snowfall for that day.

Homepage hero layout fix

Fixed a layout issue in the homepage hero section.

Powder day heatmap

Calendar heatmap showing which days historically had powder conditions at each resort.

ENSO/ONI climate index data added

Added historical ENSO/ONI climate index data covering all ski seasons since 2000, enabling El Niño and La Niña phase analysis on resort pages.

Chart play button

Animate through seasons automatically with the play button on snow and weather charts.

ENSO season selector with phase badges

The ENSO chart season selector now shows El Niño, La Niña, and Neutral phase badges alongside each year.

ENSO/ONI snowfall correlation

New section showing how El Niño and La Niña phases historically correlate with snowfall at each resort.

Resort overview panel redesign

Refreshed resort overview panel with improved layout and clearer information hierarchy.

Initial JMA data for Furano, Rusutsu, Tomamu

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Furano, Rusutsu (Kimobetsu), and Tomamu (Shimukappu), forming the first historical dataset powering the snow charts.

Season selector for snow charts

Filter snow charts by ski season using the season selector dropdown.

JMA snow depth & snowfall charts

Historical daily snow depth and snowfall charts for each resort, sourced from Japan Meteorological Agency weather station data.