Yanaizu Onsen Ski Area Closed

Yanaizu Onsen was a small ski area about a kilometre from the hot spring town of Yanaizu in western Fukushima, opened around 1980. It was known for unusual lifts: a single chair that started beside the prefectural road, crossed over it and had a mid-station, and a rare platter lift that changed direction partway up; some visitors came just to ride them. The upper slope above the centre house was floodlit, and in its later years it opened only in the evenings on weekdays. The lifts were left standing after it closed, and the area around the former ski slope is now part of the Echigo Sanzan-Tadami Quasi-National Park.