Sotogahama Kanita Ski Area Closed
Official name 外ヶ浜町蟹田スキー場
Aomori
Open 1981–2024
Kanita Ski Area was a town-run hill in Kanita, Sotogahama, on Aomori's Tsugaru Peninsula. Opened in 1981, it was a small slope with a single rope tow, used for decades by residents and for elementary-school ski lessons. Night skiing ended in fiscal 2020 when the lighting failed. Ageing facilities, falling use and the dissolution of the local ski club that ran it left no one to operate it, so it was suspended for fiscal 2023 and abolished in March 2024 after 42 years.
History of Sotogahama Kanita Ski Area
- Opened
- 1981
- Closed
- 2024
- Operators
- Sotogahama Town (Board of Education), Sotogahama Ski Club (contracted operator, dissolved)
- Why it closed
- Ageing facilities, fewer users as the population declined, and no one left to run it after the Sotogahama Ski Club, its contracted operator, was dissolved