The forest

What grows on Maiko Snow Resort

This mountain has both, in separate patches. The deciduous stands drop their leaves and open up for the winter; the conifer stands stay closed.

Read from the national vegetation survey. The survey records the cut pistes as open ground, so the ski area shows up on its own.

Plan view of the forest around Maiko Snow Resort. Bare deciduous woods pale, evergreen conifer dark, open ground lightest.
Plan view, about 6.4 km across, faintly shaded by the mountain's own relief. The pale threads are the pistes, which the survey records as open ground.
Darker ink is denser forest: evergreen conifer that stays closed through the winter. Paler ink is deciduous forest, bare from November, which you can see a long way into. The palest ink is ground with no forest on it. Every bar below uses the same three inks.
Forest cover
68%
of the ground this map covers
Bare in winter
74%
of that forest loses its leaves in winter
Planted stands
20%
of the classified ground, planted in rows of one age
Natural forest
3%
of the classified ground, level 9 of 10 on the survey’s naturalness scale
Most open at
833–925m
the height you can see furthest into the trees at
Commonest stand
ブナ-ミズナラ群落
34% of the ground the survey classified
Plant communities
29
distinct types on this mountain
Surveyed
2013
fieldwork years, not the 2024 edition

Where this mountain sits among the others on JapowDB

least bare 35%94% most bare

Its forest stands barer in winter than 7 of the 34 mountains on JapowDB.

01

Sight range, level by level

This is the mountain seen from the side. How far you can see into the trees changes with height.

Height What you can see through Bare
1,017–1,109 m
100%
925–1,017 m
99%
833–925 m
97%
740–832 m
91%
648–740 m
83%
556–648 m
81%
463–555 m
72%
371–463 m
58%
279–371 m
60%
187–279 m
37%
closed 50% 100%
A section through the mountain, base to summit.

Each reading is a share of that band's own forest, not of the mountain, and a band holding too little forest to state one is left blank. The pale bar behind the section is how much ground sits at that height, so a swing over a sliver of mountain does not read as a headline. No treeline is drawn — the survey describes stands, not a line.

02

What stands beside each run

Each run is scored on the band 35 to 90 m either side of its centre line, which is the forest you look at from the piste. Runs are ordered by how much of that band you can see through in winter.

Run The band either side See-through
RunRun Course 236 m 96%
Okusoechi RanRan Course 1,429 m 83%
ByunByun Course 561 m 82%
GinGin Course 800 m 79%
SanSan Course 339 m 74%
ZokuZoku Course 451 m 72%
GanGan Course 474 m 70%
SuiSui Course 416 m 59%
The other 20 runs
Run The band either side See-through
Nagamine RanRan Course 4,110 m 58%
Dolphin Course 849 m 56%
Gold Course 419 m 51%
Bronze Course 639 m 46%
RakuRaku Course 719 m 46%
GuiGui Course 725 m 45%
Champion Course 542 m 44%
ChoiChoi Course 473 m 41%
GunGun Course 818 m 40%
Shuttle Pair Connector Course 986 m 36%
Forest Stage 516 m 23%
Silver Course 247 m 23%
Romance Course 818 m 20%
Riesen Course 719 m 20%
Bambi Course 530 m 9%
Melody Line Course 388 m 5%
Kinder Course 656 m 5%
Paradise Course 374 m 4%
Family Course 763 m 1%
Easy Course 372 m 1%

Each figure is a share of the surveyed ground in a band 35–90 m either side of the run. The run itself and the rest of the mountain are outside it. The survey resolves about 18 m on the ground and the band is only a few cells wide, so the figure covers what the band is made of and cannot single out one tree, gap or line of sight. Runs the survey barely covers are left out. The survey has no treeline and no stem-density data.

03

What actually grows here

The survey sorts every polygon into one of its vegetation zones, then names the stand within it. A mountain usually falls into five or six zones, each holding many named stands.

Vegetation zone Share of classified ground Share
Beech-zone regrowth ブナクラス域代償植生 52%
Plantation and farmland 植林地・耕作地植生 36%
Other その他 8%
Natural beech-zone forest ブナクラス域自然植生 3%
Riverside, wetland, salt marsh and dune 河辺・湿原・塩沼地・砂丘植生 1%

The named stands underneath

The survey’s own community names, largest first. These are proper names for stand types, and the survey publishes them only in Japanese.

  • ブナ-ミズナラ群落 34%
  • スギ・ヒノキ・サワラ植林 16%
  • 水田雑草群落 14%
  • ススキ群団(V) 7%
  • 市街地 6%
  • オクチョウジザクラ-コナラ群集 5%
The other 23 communities
  • カラマツ植林 4%
  • オオバクロモジ-ミズナラ群集 3%
  • ブナ二次林 2%
  • 緑の多い住宅地 1%
  • ヒメヤシャブシ-タニウツギ群落 1%
  • アカマツ群落(V) 1%
  • 畑雑草群落 1%
  • 開放水域 1%
  • 路傍・空地雑草群落 1%
  • チシマザサ-ブナ群団 1%
  • ツルヨシ群集 0%
  • ヤナギ高木群落(IV) 0%
  • 伐採跡地群落(V) 0%
  • アカミノイヌツゲ-クロベ群集 0%
  • ジュウモンジシダ-サワグルミ群集 0%
  • 岩角地・風衝地低木群落 0%
  • ケヤキ群落(IV) 0%
  • 牧草地 0%
  • 岩壁植生 0%
  • 自然裸地 0%
  • アカマツ植林 0%
  • オニグルミ群落(V) 0%
  • ササ群落(V) 0%

Every share is of the ground the survey classified on this mountain, which is more than the forest and more than the ski area. The zones are the survey’s own; the English is a gloss and the Japanese is the source term. Zones are ordered by area, and area has no bearing on how well a zone skis.

04

How natural this vegetation is

The survey grades every polygon on a ten-point scale of how little people have changed it. Level 1 is made ground with almost nothing growing on it; level 10 is natural grassland and alpine heath. The scale measures human interference only. Natural fir sits at 9 and is a wall you cannot see through; a larch plantation sits at 6, evenly spaced and good to ski.

Level Share of classified ground Share
10 Natural grassland and alpine heath 1%
9 Natural forest 3%
8 Regrowth close to natural forest 36%
7 Secondary forest 9%
6 Plantation 20%
5 Tall secondary grassland 7%
4 Short secondary grassland 1%
2 Farmland and green residential land 17%
1 Built-up and made ground 6%

1% of the classified ground carries a code outside the ten levels. It is left out of the rows above.

Every share is of the ground the survey classified on this mountain. The scale records human interference only; a higher level does not mean better skiing. Levels this mountain does not have are left out.

National vegetation survey, 2024 edition, Biodiversity Center, Ministry of the Environment, Japan. Processed by JapowDB; the Ministry did not produce this version.

This mountain's polygons were walked in 2013. The edition is dated 2024; the fieldwork is older.

Each cell is about 18 m across, roughly the size of a small clearing.