Shiga Kogen is a large snow sports resort area on a high plateau 2000m above Nagano. It is very different than other snow resorts I have visited as it is not a single resort town that all the lifts start from, but instead a collection of 18 smaller resorts clustered together.
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| Shiga Kogen Map |
This means not only that it does not feel crowded even though there are a lot of people, but also, because the people are scattered around a large area, there are no services other than hotels and their restaurants (they do have a few food trucks). We met our guide Yuna at the Shiga Kogen Nature Center (small red box in lower center of map).
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| Yuna |
After getting checked out on the snowshoes by Yuna, she drove us to the Mt Yakebitai gondola for the ride to the top where we had the obligatory picture with the 2000m sign.
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| Top of Mt Yakebitai |
We were lucky in that we had partially clear skies for our snowshoe around the top of the mountain. We started the snowshoe in a forested area and Yuna showed us how to relax in the snow.
After walking a bit, it opened up and we walked over the frozen Chigo-ike Pond.
Along the pond is a Torii gate. Normally the gate looks like the first picture, but this year the snow is really deep so we had to dig out the top of the Torii gate.
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| Mt Yakebitai Torii Gate - 2024 |
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Next we walked to an area where the wind make the snow on the trees look like snow monsters. We even went down inside one :).
We then walked to the edge of the plateau so we could enjoy the view of the valley while drinking good lemon-ginger tea Yuna brought.
All too soon, it was time to go back to the gondola for the ride back to the Tourism Association Center. I highly recommend this trip and Yuna as a guide if you are interesting in trying snowshoeing in Japan. Check them out at the Shiga Kogen Nature Center. They have tours in English and Japanese.
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