The forest

What grows on Tangram Ski Circus

Mostly deciduous: broadleaf woods and larch. They stand bare through the winter, so you can see a long way into them.

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 Tangram Ski Circus. Bare deciduous woods pale, evergreen conifer dark, open ground lightest.
Plan view, about 5.5 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
82%
of the ground this map covers
Bare in winter
84%
of that forest loses its leaves in winter
Planted stands
25%
of the classified ground, planted in rows of one age
Natural forest
0%
of the classified ground, level 9 of 10 on the survey’s naturalness scale
Most open at
1,225–1,303m
the height you can see furthest into the trees at
Commonest stand
オオバクロモジ-ミズナラ群集
45% of the ground the survey classified
Plant communities
34
distinct types on this mountain
Surveyed
2002–2017
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 15 of the 36 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
1,302–1,380 m
100%
1,225–1,303 m
100%
1,147–1,225 m
93%
1,069–1,147 m
90%
991–1,069 m
84%
913–991 m
85%
835–913 m
87%
758–836 m
82%
680–758 m
71%
602–680 m
75%
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
Queens Downhill 297 m 88%
King Slalom 1,061 m 83%
Village Line 685 m 78%
Sky Love Line 451 m 77%
Zigzag Line 459 m 77%
Forest Line 793 m 74%
Budosawa 259 m 74%
Primary Line 1,947 m 66%
The other 9 runs
Run The band either side See-through
Pantan Line 708 m 66%
Momo Downhill 588 m 65%
Anzu Downhill 469 m 65%
Green Line 1,049 m 59%
Jack Downhill 603 m 56%
White Line 206 m 50%
Family Line 421 m 42%
Multiplay Line 587 m 24%
Heartlane Line 498 m 19%

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 14 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 57%
Plantation and farmland 植林地・耕作地植生 32%
Other その他 6%
Evergreen broadleaf-zone regrowth ヤブツバキクラス域代償植生 4%
Riverside, wetland, salt marsh and dune 河辺・湿原・塩沼地・砂丘植生 0%
Natural beech-zone forest ブナクラス域自然植生 0%

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.

  • オオバクロモジ-ミズナラ群集 45%
  • スギ・ヒノキ・サワラ植林 13%
  • カラマツ植林 10%
  • ブナ-ミズナラ群落 9%
  • クリ-コナラ群集 4%
  • 牧草地 4%
The other 28 communities
  • 水田雑草群落 3%
  • 開放水域 3%
  • 緑の多い住宅地 2%
  • ゴルフ場・芝地 2%
  • 落葉広葉低木群落 2%
  • 市街地 1%
  • ブナ二次林 1%
  • ススキ群団(V) 1%
  • ヨシクラス 0%
  • 畑雑草群落 0%
  • ケヤキ二次林 0%
  • 放棄水田雑草群落 0%
  • レンゲツツジ-シラカンバ群集 0%
  • アカマツ群落(V) 0%
  • ジュウモンジシダ-サワグルミ群集 0%
  • 路傍・空地雑草群落 0%
  • ヒメヤシャブシ-タニウツギ群落 0%
  • 岩角地・風衝地低木群落 0%
  • 伐採跡地群落(V) 0%
  • ハルニレ群集 0%
  • タニウツギ-ノリウツギ群落 0%
  • ユキグニミツバツツジ-アカマツ群集 0%
  • ウワバミソウ-ミヤマカワラハンノキ群集 0%
  • ササ群落(V) 0%
  • 放棄畑雑草群落 0%
  • 造成地 0%
  • ヌマガヤオーダー 0%
  • ハンノキ群落(IV) 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 0%
9 Natural forest 0%
8 Regrowth close to natural forest 10%
7 Secondary forest 49%
6 Plantation 25%
5 Tall secondary grassland 1%
4 Short secondary grassland 2%
2 Farmland and green residential land 9%
1 Built-up and made ground 1%

3% 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 2002, 2013 and 2017. The edition is dated 2024; the fieldwork is older.

Each cell is about 14 m across, roughly the size of a small clearing.