Steep and deep: the most advanced terrain with reliable natural snow

The short answer

Among the resorts Cirque models whose mid-mountain has been snow-sure for at least three months of the year, Whistler Blackcomb has the most mapped advanced terrain: 98 km of runs marked advanced, expert or freeride in OpenStreetMap.

Run lengths come from OpenStreetMap, where difficulty is tagged by volunteers following each country’s colours. Advanced roughly means black runs everywhere, but tagging varies, so treat small differences loosely. Chamonix, Cervinia, Val Gardena have no run data yet and are left out.

The ranking

1. Whistler Blackcomb, Canada: 98 km advanced or harder of 299 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 5 months.

2. Vail, USA: 83 km advanced or harder of 215 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

3. Big Sky, USA: 83 km advanced or harder of 238 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 5 months.

4. Alta, USA: 40 km advanced or harder of 76 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

5. Ischgl, Austria: 36 km advanced or harder of 163 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

6. Aspen Snowmass, USA: 33 km advanced or harder of 120 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

7. Banff Sunshine, Canada: 31 km advanced or harder of 77 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

8. Verbier, Switzerland: 29 km advanced or harder of 174 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 5 months.

9. Jackson Hole, USA: 26 km advanced or harder of 79 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

10. Revelstoke, Canada: 25 km advanced or harder of 84 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 3 months.

11. Tignes, France: 23 km advanced or harder of 211 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 6 months.

12. Courchevel, France: 18 km advanced or harder of 151 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

13. St. Anton, Austria: 18 km advanced or harder of 99 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 4 months.

14. Zermatt, Switzerland: 16 km advanced or harder of 208 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 6 months.

15. Mammoth Mountain, USA: 13 km advanced or harder of 86 km mapped; mid-mountain snow-sure in 3 months.

Questions

Which ski resort has the most advanced terrain?

Among the resorts Cirque models with at least three snow-sure months, Whistler Blackcomb, Vail and Big Sky have the most runs mapped as advanced or harder in OpenStreetMap.

Where does the run data come from?

OpenStreetMap, via OpenSkiMap. Difficulty follows each country’s colour system and is tagged by volunteers, so it is approximate.

Does this include snowmaking?

No. These are modelled natural snow figures only, from ERA5 weather. Groomed pistes with snowmaking often ski better than this.