The world’s former joint third largest ski area by area, at Nozawa Onsen in Japan, has announced that it’s expanding from 20,000 to 23,000 sqm this summer.  It’s now the third largest without an equal.

Like the largest, the 1.1km long 44,000 sqm summer dry slope at fellow Japanese ski area Kagura and the second largest, a 38,000 sqm, 800m long run at Bears Town in South Korea, Nozawa Onsen spreads the dry slope surface on its regular ski run once the snow melts to use for summer training. All three companies use a material supplied by Korean Company PIS TEC..

Nozawa Onsen is one of Japan’s longest established ski areas, celebrating its centenary of snowsports in 23-24.  It built one of the world’s longest dry ski slopes in 2017, opened it on July 1^st.

The 500m slope has its own chairlift and computer-controlled ticket access gates and has a maximum gradient of 27° and average slope 12°.

It was formerly joint third in the world for area on 20,000 sqm with the Olympic Forest Park near Beijing in China which is the world’s largest year-round dry slope centre by area. It opened on 10th September 2017 using JF Ski dry slope matting and is recognised by the FIS and BASI.

Nozawa Onsen gave announced they’ll be running special classes on their slope led by SAJ National Demonstrator Takashi Katagiri from July 13^th.