Tsugaike Mountain Resort Guide
栂池高原スキー場Tsugaike Mountain Resort (Tsugaike Kogen) sits at the northern end of the Hakuba Valley in Otari, Nagano, and is one of the valley's largest ski areas — renowned for its enormous, gentle beginner terrain, including the 1,200-metre-wide Tsuga-no-mori slope. It spans 196 hectares and a 904-metre vertical drop across 14 courses served by a gondola and 19 lifts, with a 4,630-metre top-to-bottom run, night skiing, a terrain park, and serious lift-accessed backcountry (the famous Tsugaike DBD) above the treeline.
Resort Location
Location of the resort on the map of Japan.
Resort highlights
- Access
- Night skiing Gondola access Terrain park
- Snow
- Reliable powder
- Terrain
- Big vertical High alpine Beginner-friendly
- Onsen
- Open-air onsen Family onsen Ryokan stays Onsen nearby
- Season
- Long season Late closer
Snow Report
Snow Report →How deep the snow gets, and when — averaged across recorded seasons.
Typical base at the deepest half-month.
MeasuredMountain
Mountain →Which way the mountain faces, how steep it gets, and how it compares.
Lifts
Every active lift, ranked by how many riders it moves uphill each hour.
18 active lifts carrying skiers uphill.
EstimatedRiders per hour (estimated)
Lift Tickets
Lift Tickets →What an hour of skiing actually costs, across every ticket length.
Cheapest cost per hour among the compared passes.
MeasuredGetting Here
Getting Here →One recommended public route from each gateway, all leading here.
4 gateway cities with a confirmed public route.
Measured- Tokyo → Nagano Station (Shinkansen) + bus: board:Tokyo Station — Tokyo Station — (北陸新幹線, 80 min) — Nagano Station — (Alpico Kotsu, 92 min) — Tsugaike Kogen
- Shinkansen to Nagano + express bus (via Haneda Airport): Haneda Airport — (東京モノレール, 23 min) — Hamamatsucho Station — (山手線, 6 min) — Tokyo Station — (北陸新幹線, 80 min) — Nagano Station — (Alpico Kotsu, 92 min) — Tsugaike Kogen
- Airport shuttle taxi (via Matsumoto Airport): Matsumoto Airport — (Nan-an Taxi, 160 min) — Tsugaike Kogen
- Shinkansen + Oito Line + village bus (via Toyama Airport): Toyama Airport — (Toyama Chihou Railway, 24 min) — Toyama Station — (北陸新幹線, 26 min) — Itoigawa Station — (大糸線, 61 min) — Minami-Otari Station — (Otari Village Shuttle (Konayuki-go), 26 min) — Tsugaike Kogen
Videos
Videos →What riders actually said on camera, timestamped to the moment.
6 rider clips from confirmed videos.
Creator-sourced-
“Come with me for a little preview to the Sugit Parks on the side here. We're going to hit a switchboard. We're going to 50/50 from three. And then we're going to cruise on down here... they do have a few rails blocked off here right now. You got a down bar, down bar, and a donkey dink right here. And this cruises into the big jumps.”
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“On the right side of the Sugaki base area sits OA nohara, a long gentle course stretching approximately 1 kilometer served by a threeperson chairlift running from the base up to roughly mid-mount. It is wide, it is mellow, and it tends to feel quieter and more tucked away.”
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“The station at the top of the mountain. Toganomori slope. After getting off the gondola, it is connected to the red (intermediate) course. Beyond that is the green (beginner) course.”
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“This is ski slope 10.11 slope 10 is for beginners. This is ski slope 9, slope 19 The width is about 400 meters. It is definitely the best ski resort for beginners in the Hakuba area.”
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“here we are at the top of sagaiki at the Suga number two peer lift … the key to this lift is it links you to all the back country and gives you access to the sagoki trees”
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“This one is great, take a look. Fortunately, not bad at all. We are reunited again. We're now taking the Han-no-ki lift. Now it's snowing under a big sun. Super cool.”