Best Snow Quality - Gifted Natural Environment.
Very light snow is called powder snow.
APPI area gets very light and dry snow that you cannot even make snowball.
Hokkaido ≤ APPI
Thanks to the great location, our snow quality is very similar to Hokkaido' s one
APPI is located in the same latitude of 40° N as Austria' s Arlberg and U.S.' s Aspen. What is happening in here when it snows? First, the moisture from Sea of Japan creates lines of clouds, and they will bring wet snow to the west coast and west side of Japan. When those clouds move to the east, they pass Hachimantai area where is about 10 km away from APPI. Clouds get cold but don' t get cold enough to create snowflakes when they pass Hachimantai area. It creates famous iced tree monster called "Jyuhyou" by trees are covered with a lot of ice and snow. Because Hachimantai area is massive with these trees, it sucks up most of moisture from clouds. After all, clouds bring light and dry snow to APPI area. This is the reason why APPI area gets the best quality of the snow.
About 160 days / 365 days
Thanks to north facing slopes, our season is very long.
Thanks to North facing slopes where they get less impact from the sun on Mt. Maemori and Mt. Nishimori, APPI Aspirin snow keeps in very good condition throughout the season. Although we don't get too much snow mass compared to other places where they get wet snow, we are able to open our area from mid December to the beginning of May because of the great location.