Visited Iwate Kogen once in mid-December 2025, as part of a Morioka based trip. I'm an intermediate powderhound, who hasn't graduated to fully off-piste riding yet (side pow and ungroomed runs).

Iwate Kogen is a great resort for riders and skiers looking for a day on the piste trails doing laps with minimal crowds. Tree skiing and off piste would require discretion, as it is banned by the resort, with the threat of lift pass confiscation.

The highlight of Iwate Kogen for me was the E1 course accessed from the Gondola. This ungroomed run had fantastic early season snow and sections of great pitch, even if they were short lived. This trail flows onto the groomed E3, which has easily accessible side pow and trees. Being the only person running laps down this run was a trip highlight!

Other piste trails are worthy but probably not for powderhounds. Straight and wide runs down the centre of the resort do suffer from the wind. A weakness of the resort is the reliance on the gondola to access the interesting terrain, I'd imagine a busy weekend day would be a slog!

The food court was decent, but not to the level of Appi and Geto, which is to be expected! Ordering food requires you to navigate a Japanese only ticket machine, so be prepared.

Please go and support this small resort :)
See our video here

Iwate Kogen looked pretty dinky on paper, but we thought we’d better check it out to make sure we weren’t missing out on an absolute gem. It’s probably not an absolute treasure, but it’s worth including in your repertoire of Iwate ski resorts because it has some pretty yummy trees. It’s best visited when it’s dumping and/or temperatures are cold.

The ski resort was very busy as it was a Sunday, but the majority of visitors were on the beginner lift or sitting in the cafeteria. Other than a few local snowboarders, no one was in the trees. We can only assume from a few fences and signs with a big X, that officially, off-piste and sidecountry riding are not permitted. However watching the few locals, it seemed that perhaps there’s a little bit of tolerance to off-piste skiing because they were riding some of the easy-picking trees in plain sight. Some of the trees were very steep, possibly unstable, and some lines didn’t have an easy egress but it was some fun exploration.

Our thoughts on the pros and cons are outlined on the Iwate Kogen overview page and you can also check out our Japanese ski resort ratings.
See our video here