Snow Park Unpenji
A one-lift ski area on a Shikoku temple mountain with just 50 metres of vertical, entirely dependent on snow cannons; it closed in March 2020 and the summit is now a park with swings and a cafe.
- Region
- Kagawa Prefecture
- Country
- Japan
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 2001
- Year closed
- 2020
- Reason for closure
- Warmer winters, falling visitor numbers and the cost of running the snowmaking machines the area depended on, with the arrival of coronavirus finishing it off. It last operated in March 2020.
History
Snow Park Unpenji (スノーパーク雲辺寺) sat just below the summit of Mount Unpenji in Kanonji City, Kagawa Prefecture, on the Shikoku side of the border with Tokushima - about as far south as organised skiing gets in Japan. It was tiny even by the standards of this dataset: one 244 m triple lift, a single main run of 260 m, a steepest pitch of 19 degrees and 50 m of vertical between an 860 m base and a 910 m top, kept going almost entirely by snow cannons. It opened in 2001 and ran until March 2020, when warming winters, falling visitor numbers, the cost of making snow and the arrival of the pandemic ended it together. The triple lift is still there. The summit has been turned into Unpenji Sancho Koen, a park with swings and a cafe, and the Unpenji Ropeway of 1987 still runs independently, carrying visitors to the park and to Unpenji Temple, the sixty-sixth stop on the Shikoku pilgrimage. The coordinates mark Mount Unpenji.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Triple | 244 m triple lift, the area only lift; still in place after closure |
Sources and further reading
More in Japan
Location
34.0351, 133.7229