The forest
What grows on Rusutsu Resort
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 25 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1,022–1,106 m | | 100% |
| 937–1,021 m | | 100% |
| 853–937 m | | 96% |
| 769–853 m | | 99% |
| 685–769 m | | 95% |
| 601–685 m | | 81% |
| 517–601 m | | 84% |
| 433–517 m | | 89% |
| 349–433 m | | 92% |
| 265–349 m | | 96% |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Heavenly Ridge B 964 m | 77% | |
| Steamboat-B 1,929 m | 77% | |
| Heavenly Ridge A 1,226 m | 77% | |
| Isola-B 676 m | 76% | |
| Heavenly Canyon 1,468 m | 75% | |
| Isola-C 600 m | 73% | |
| Furikozawa 2,204 m | 73% | |
| Isola Grand Bypass 708 m | 72% |
The other 29 runs
| Run | The band either side | See-through |
|---|---|---|
| Hevenly View 2,601 m | 67% | |
| Steamboat-A 1,930 m | 66% | |
| Isola Grand 3,001 m | 65% | |
| Super East 380 m | 65% | |
| Heavenly Spirit 507 m | 64% | |
| Tiger 579 m | 63% | |
| Rusutsu No.1 439 m | 63% | |
| Isola-A 741 m | 60% | |
| Across A 217 m | 59% | |
| East Tignes 1,757 m | 59% | |
| Isola Top Bypass 273 m | 52% | |
| Heavenly Trail 708 m | 52% | |
| East Vivaldi 2,045 m | 48% | |
| Tree Run 640 m | 47% | |
| Family 676 m | 45% | |
| Fuboru 1,690 m | 44% | |
| Bambi 857 m | 43% | |
| Eva 713 m | 42% | |
| Natural 466 m | 42% | |
| Elite 639 m | 42% | |
| Giant 1,127 m | 41% | |
| Dynamic 491 m | 41% | |
| White Lover 714 m | 39% | |
| Joint 298 m | 38% | |
| Across B 152 m | 35% | |
| Rainbow 2,163 m | 31% | |
| Isola-D Bypass 373 m | 25% | |
| Isola-D 674 m | 19% | |
| East Trail 684 m | 2% |
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 24 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 | 35% | |
| Plantation and farmland 植林地・耕作地植生 | 33% | |
| Natural beech-zone forest ブナクラス域自然植生 | 18% | |
| Natural subalpine conifer forest コケモモ－トウヒクラス域自然植生 | 8% | |
| Subalpine conifer-zone regrowth コケモモ－トウヒクラス域代償植生 | 4% | |
| Other その他 | 2% | |
| Alpine natural vegetation 高山帯自然植生域 | 0% | |
| Riverside, wetland, salt marsh and dune 河辺・湿原・塩沼地・砂丘植生 | 0% |
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 17%
- エゾイタヤ－ミズナラ群落 15%
- 畑雑草群落 15%
- ササ群落（V） 6%
- カラマツ植林 6%
- ササ－ダケカンバ群落（北海道） 5%
The other 36 communities
- ササ－シラカンバ群落 5%
- トドマツ植林 5%
- 牧草地 5%
- ダケカンバ群落（III） 3%
- オオヨモギ群落 3%
- ダケカンバ群落（V） 2%
- ササ群落（II） 2%
- ゴルフ場・芝地 1%
- ハルニレ群落 1%
- 放棄畑雑草群落 1%
- 市街地 1%
- 伐採跡地群落（V） 1%
- 緑の多い住宅地 1%
- アカエゾマツ植林 1%
- ササ群落（III） 1%
- トドマツ－ミズナラ群落 0%
- ミヤマハンノキ群落（北海道） 0%
- ヤナギ高木群落（IV） 0%
- ヒメヤシャブシ－タニウツギ群落 0%
- 残存・植栽樹群をもった公園、墓地等 0%
- ササ群落（IV） 0%
- ダケカンバ－エゾマツ群落 0%
- ヤナギ低木群落（IV） 0%
- ニセアカシア群落 0%
- ヤマハンノキ群落 0%
- オオヨモギ－オオイタドリ群団 0%
- 開放水域 0%
- 伐採跡地群落（III） 0%
- ススキ群団（V） 0%
- 路傍・空地雑草群落 0%
- エゾマツ植林 0%
- コケモモ－ハイマツ群集 0%
- ダケカンバ群落（II） 0%
- シナノキンバイ－ミヤマキンポウゲ群団 0%
- ヨシクラス 0%
- 放棄水田雑草群落 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 | 2% |
| 9 | Natural forest | 24% |
| 8 | Regrowth close to natural forest | 3% |
| 7 | Secondary forest | 25% |
| 6 | Plantation | 11% |
| 5 | Tall secondary grassland | 7% |
| 4 | Short secondary grassland | 7% |
| 3 | Orchard, tea and mulberry field | 0% |
| 2 | Farmland and green residential land | 20% |
| 1 | Built-up and made ground | 1% |
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 2011: the edition is 2024, the looking is older.
About 24 m per cell — fine enough to describe a hillside, never an individual gap between two trees.