The forest
What grows on Niseko United
Mostly deciduous — broadleaf woods and larch. They stand bare through the winter, and you can see a long way into them.
Read off the national vegetation survey. Where the pistes are cut the survey records open ground, so the ski area draws itself.
Where that sits among the mountains we publish
Its forest goes bare more readily than 28 of the 29 mountains we publish.
01
Sight range, level by level
The mountain seen side-on. How far you can see into the trees changes with height, and each band is drawn level with its own row.
| Height | What you can see through | Bare |
|---|---|---|
| 1,186–1,305 m | | 49% |
| 1,068–1,187 m | | 64% |
| 949–1,068 m | | 77% |
| 830–949 m | | 97% |
| 712–831 m | | 98% |
| 593–712 m | | 100% |
| 475–594 m | | 93% |
| 356–475 m | | 92% |
| 237–356 m | | 94% |
| 119–238 m | | 98% |
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
A band 35 to 90 m either side of each run’s centre line: outside the groomed piste, inside what you look at from it. Ordered by how much of that band is forest you can see through in winter.
| Run | The band either side | See-through |
|---|---|---|
| Crystal Garden 816 m | 90% | |
| Legend of Shinya 584 m | 87% | |
| Miharashi 1,165 m | 85% | |
| Hanazono Park 735 m | 84% | |
| Colly's Folly 581 m | 81% | |
| Rinkan 620 m | 81% | |
| Pure Magic 187 m | 79% | |
| Silver Dream 2,512 m | 78% |
The other 65 runs
| Run | The band either side | See-through |
|---|---|---|
| Holiday 3,496 m | 77% | |
| Koguma 217 m | 75% | |
| Cruiser 894 m | 75% | |
| Stairway to Heaven 812 m | 74% | |
| Mango Salad 562 m | 73% | |
| Merchen 388 m | 71% | |
| Final Fling 698 m | 70% | |
| Yard Sale 329 m | 69% | |
| Renraku 283 m | 68% | |
| Konayuki 678 m | 66% | |
| Shaky Knees 362 m | 64% | |
| Parallel 636 m | 63% | |
| Green 1,512 m | 60% | |
| Setsuzoku 344 m | 60% | |
| Dabesa 1,356 m | 60% | |
| Silver 333 m | 60% | |
| Jagaimo 244 m | 60% | |
| Banzai 562 m | 58% | |
| Misoshiru 601 m | 57% | |
| "S" ji 497 m | 57% | |
| Utopia 455 m | 57% | |
| Shirakaba 1,668 m | 56% | |
| Center 947 m | 56% | |
| Namara 701 m | 56% | |
| Onsenzawa 296 m | 52% | |
| Snorkel 562 m | 52% | |
| Youtei Sunset 1,147 m | 51% | |
| Panorama 675 m | 50% | |
| Boomerang 280 m | 49% | |
| Nekko no Kabe 208 m | 49% | |
| Large 713 m | 49% | |
| Juicy Fruit 823 m | 48% | |
| Enchantment 646 m | 47% | |
| King area access pass 403 m | 47% | |
| Junior 983 m | 47% | |
| Next Stage 650 m | 46% | |
| Unforgettable 281 m | 46% | |
| Konbu 301 m | 46% | |
| Ukairo 717 m | 45% | |
| Junkyard 378 m | 44% | |
| Super 1,569 m | 44% | |
| Zangi 312 m | 43% | |
| Paradise 627 m | 42% | |
| Ni-kabe 533 m | 41% | |
| Superstition 1,022 m | 39% | |
| Wonderland 775 m | 39% | |
| Ageimo 776 m | 38% | |
| Don't Bliink 211 m | 38% | |
| Kokutai 666 m | 37% | |
| Jumbo 1,038 m | 36% | |
| Make Sense 282 m | 35% | |
| Beginners access 451 m | 32% | |
| Challenge 335 m | 31% | |
| Champion 527 m | 29% | |
| Fukayuki-rinkan 480 m | 27% | |
| Joppin 301 m | 24% | |
| Dynamic 1,082 m | 23% | |
| Furiko 646 m | 22% | |
| Family 1,948 m | 19% | |
| Ritz Ski Run 117 m | 17% | |
| Sennoki 863 m | 16% | |
| Boyo 751 m | 14% | |
| Alpen 528 m | 6% | |
| Kogen 510 m | 5% | |
| Hinode Ski Run 190 m | 3% |
Each figure is a share of the surveyed ground in a band 35–90 m either side of that run — not of the run, and not of the mountain. The survey resolves about 25 m on the ground and the band is a few cells wide, so this says what the band is made of, never what one tree, one gap or one line of sight is like. A run the survey barely covers is left out rather than stated from a handful of cells. No treeline and no stem density: the survey records stands, not either of those.
03
What actually grows here
The survey sorts every polygon into one of its own vegetation zones before it gives a stand a name. Five or six zones describe a mountain; the named stands underneath them run to dozens.
| Vegetation zone | Share of classified ground | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Beech-zone regrowth ブナクラス域代償植生 | 47% | |
| Natural subalpine conifer forest コケモモ－トウヒクラス域自然植生 | 17% | |
| Plantation and farmland 植林地・耕作地植生 | 15% | |
| Natural beech-zone forest ブナクラス域自然植生 | 8% | |
| Subalpine conifer-zone regrowth コケモモ－トウヒクラス域代償植生 | 6% | |
| Other その他 | 5% | |
| Alpine natural vegetation 高山帯自然植生域 | 1% | |
| 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. They are proper names for stand types and the survey publishes no English for them, so they stand in Japanese here rather than as a translation we invented.
- シラカンバ－ミズナラ群落 31%
- ササ－ダケカンバ群落（北海道） 12%
- ダケカンバ群落（V） 7%
- 畑雑草群落 6%
- ササ群落（II） 5%
- ダケカンバ群落（III） 5%
The other 42 communities
- エゾイタヤ－ミズナラ群落 5%
- 緑の多い住宅地 4%
- オオヨモギ群落 4%
- カラマツ植林 4%
- ササ群落（V） 3%
- トドマツ植林 2%
- ササ－シラカンバ群落 2%
- ササ群落（III） 1%
- ハルニレ群落 1%
- ゴルフ場・芝地 1%
- 牧草地 1%
- ハイマツ群落 1%
- ダケカンバ群落（Ⅳ） 1%
- アカエゾマツ植林 1%
- ヒメヤシャブシ－タニウツギ群落 1%
- ササ群落（IV） 1%
- 硫気孔原植生 1%
- コケモモ－ハイマツ群集 0%
- 開放水域 0%
- 市街地 0%
- ススキ群団（V） 0%
- その他植林（落葉広葉樹） 0%
- 外国産樹種植林 0%
- 伐採跡地群落（V） 0%
- その他植林（常緑針葉樹） 0%
- ヤナギ高木群落（IV） 0%
- シラカンバ植林 0%
- 造成地 0%
- イソツツジ－ハイマツ群集 0%
- ツルコケモモ－ミズゴケクラス 0%
- 放棄畑雑草群落 0%
- 路傍・空地雑草群落 0%
- ヤナギ低木群落（IV） 0%
- ヨシ群落（代償植生） 0%
- 放棄水田雑草群落 0%
- エゾマツ－トドマツ群集 0%
- オオヨモギ－オオイタドリ群団 0%
- ミヤマハンノキ群落（北海道） 0%
- シナノキンバイ－ミヤマキンポウゲ群団 0%
- ヒルムシロクラス 0%
- ヤチダモ植林 0%
- 河川敷砂礫地植生 0%
Every share is of the ground the survey classified on this mountain — not of the forest, and not of the ski area. The zones are the survey’s own; the English beside each one is our gloss and the Japanese is what the source says. Ordering is by area, and says nothing about what skis well.
04
How natural this vegetation is
The survey places every polygon on a ten-point scale of how little people changed it: 1 is made ground with almost nothing growing on it, 10 is natural grassland and alpine heath. It measures interference and nothing else — natural fir sits at 9 and is a wall you cannot see through, a larch plantation sits at 6 and is evenly spaced and lovely to ski.
| Level | Share of classified ground | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Natural grassland and alpine heath | 6% |
| 9 | Natural forest | 21% |
| 8 | Regrowth close to natural forest | 5% |
| 7 | Secondary forest | 40% |
| 6 | Plantation | 7% |
| 5 | Tall secondary grassland | 5% |
| 4 | Short secondary grassland | 5% |
| 3 | Orchard, tea and mulberry field | 0% |
| 2 | Farmland and green residential land | 11% |
| 1 | Built-up and made ground | 0% |
A fraction of a percent of the classified ground carries a code that is not one of the ten levels. It is left out of the rows above rather than counted as a level.
Every share is of the ground the survey classified on this mountain. The scale records how little people interfered and nothing else: it is not a ranking, and a higher level is not a better place to ski. Levels this mountain does not carry are absent rather than drawn as zero.
National vegetation survey, 2024 edition — Biodiversity Center, Ministry of the Environment, Japan. Modified data, not produced by the Ministry.
This mountain's polygons were surveyed in 2021: the edition is 2024, the looking is older.
About 25 m per cell — fine enough to describe a hillside, never an individual gap between two trees.