June 1, 2025
Overview of Madarao Kogen Mountain Resort ski resort including lifts, pistes, elevation, terrain breakdown, and on-mountain layout. Explore resort stats, trail difficulty, and key information for planning your ski trip.
Madarao Mountain Resort is located fairly near the Sea of Japan on the border of Nagano and Niigata.
Madarao Mountain Resort is normally open from mid or latter half of December to early April. In the 2023/24 season, it was open from Dec 23 to Mar 31.
The lifts are typically open from 0830hrs to 1630hrs, 7 days a week.
Yes, there is night skiing at Madarao. Lift tickets are separate from daytime tickets. Night skiing is available on weekends. There is also night skiing on New Year’s Eve.
Not really off-piste but Madarao boasts 60% of their pistes are ungroomed. That makes it a great chance to catch powder especially in the months of January and February when the average base is around 3m
Madarao offers backcountry tours. There are half day (3 hours) and full day (6 hours) tours available. Be sure to have the right equipment with you. Skiing out of bounds is certainly not rick-free. You can make it safer for your and others by taking appropriate training like AST.
A one day lift ticket is as follows;
| Adult (13 and over) | Yen 8,000 |
|---|---|
| Senior(55 and over) | Yen 7,500 |
| Child (6 to 12) | Yen 5,000 |
| 8:30 – 16:30 （Cannot be used during “Nighter” hours）. |
|
Lifts tickets were only Yen 5,500 for a one day’s pass back in 2019/2020.
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There is a kid’s park. You can enjoy sleds, snow tubes and a Japanese style igloo
Madarao Kogen Hotel includes an onsen. Anyone can access it whether you are a guest or not. There are both indoor and outdoor baths.
Madarao has done an excellent job of publishing a full list and map of their shops and restaurants. Click on the map or here for all the details (it takes quite some time to load though).
There are ski and snowboard rentals along with wear. There are also high end ski and snowboards available for rent. If you want to ski Madarao’s powder either on or off piste, the latest power boards are also available for rent.
Madarao has both ski and snow board schools. There are also English speaking instructors. All levels taught from beginners to experts. Lessons are in a variety of packages including group lesson, private lessons, 1 hour lesson, full day lessons and so forth.
Madarao Kogen Hotel is the largest hotel in the area, however, there are many different places to choose from.
From Tokyo, grab the Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Nagano Station. It will take about 1 hour and 50 minutes. From Nagano Station to Madarao, take a bus. It will take about 30 minutes.
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