top lift station minus lowest lift base; 1,800 m (5,900 ft)+ = full marks
skiresort.info
Size
15
US: skiable acres (5,000 = full); world: km of marked pistes (300 km = full)
resort page / OnTheSnow; skiresort.info
Average snowfall
15
1,100 cm (433 in) = full; unknown when no reliable figure (all Alpine resorts)
official figure, else OnTheSnow
Snow reliability
15
rating, top elevation and season length, equal thirds
skiresort.info
Lifts
10
lift count and lift-quality rating
skiresort.info
Expert terrain
15
km of difficult runs, share of difficult runs, expert rating
skiresort.info
Village
15
accommodation, après-ski and dining ratings
skiresort.info test reports
Missing data is never filled in: an unknown criterion is dropped and the total re-scaled (points earned ÷ points available × 100). Alpine resorts publish no reliable average snowfall, so they're scored out of 85. US size uses acres and world size uses piste-km, so the two lists are close to — not exactly — comparable.
2,457–3,527 m · Lift-served vertical 1,070 m (3,510 ft) · 5,317 skiable acres · 234 piste km (93 difficult km) · 34 lifts · Snowfall 899 cm / 354 in
Season 2026-27
Opens Nov 13 2026 (weather permitting); closing date not yet announcedTo confirmSource
Fly to
Eagle County Regional (EGE); Denver Intl (DEN) is the big-hub alternative · EGE ~30–35 mi, 40–45 min; DEN ~100+ mi, about 2 h (I-70 traffic/weather)Source
1,236–2,518 m · Lift-served vertical 1,282 m (4,206 ft) · 181 piste km (21 difficult km) · 79 lifts · Snowfall Unknown
Season 2026-27
Dec 4 2026 – Apr 4 2027 (per Val Gardena; snow permitting)To confirmSource
Fly to
Bolzano (BZO, small); Innsbruck (INN) 120 km; Verona (VRN) 190 km · BZO ~40 km, about 35 min; INN/VRN no official time publishedSource
Peak window ticket
Unknown — No verified 2026-27 peak window price; resorts use dynamic pricing.
€ 83 · skiresort.info listed adult day ticket (season not stated)Source
Passes
Ikon Pass: Ikon Pass 7 days · Ikon Base 5 days via Dolomiti Superski (Nov 15–Apr 15; Italian liability insurance required). Epic's Skirama Dolomiti is a different area.Source
New for 2026-27
Two new 10-person gondolas (Ruacia–Sochers–Bruno, Costabella) listed by skiresort.info – NOT confirmed in Dolomiti Superski's official 26/27 releasePartly verifiedskiresort.info
Listed by skiresort.info but not in Dolomiti Superski's official 26/27 release.
Underrated by our numbers: only the Grands Montets sector (29 km) could be scored because skiresort.info lists Chamonix's areas separately, so its 55.3 understates the whole valley — 1,513 m of lift-served vertical, top experts-and-freeride rating, and Ikon/Mountain Collective access across all five areas.
1,252–2,765 m · Lift-served vertical 1,513 m (4,964 ft) · 29 piste km (14 difficult km) · 8 lifts · Snowfall Unknown
Passes
Ikon Pass: Ikon Pass 7 days · Ikon Base 5 days, combined across 5 Chamonix areas; Aiguille du Midi not includedSource
Famous for deep, frequent Hokkaido powder — but no verified average snowfall exists, so snowfall (15 points) couldn't be scored and its 54.2 doesn't reflect what it's known for. Top ratings for experts/freeride, snow reliability and accommodation.
255–1,188 m · Lift-served vertical 933 m (3,061 ft) · 50.8 piste km (10.2 difficult km) · 32 lifts · Snowfall Unknown
Passes
Ikon Pass: Ikon Pass 7 days · Ikon Base 5 days · Ikon Session (2–4 days)Source
Headline stats are often inflated, sometimes by the resort's own figures.
Ischgl advertises 239 km of slopes. Its own audited breakdown shows that 239 km is the distance of a "sporty route" (skiing in turns). The horizontal GPS length is 163 km (ischgl.com).
Steamboat's stats page lists 3,741 "permitted" acres, but only 2,965 skiable acres (steamboat.com).
Jackson Hole markets "5,500+ acres", which counts about 3,000 acres of backcountry reached through gates. In-bounds terrain is 2,500 acres (jacksonhole.com).
Breckenridge's 12,998 ft summit is hike-to. The highest lift, Imperial, tops out at 12,840 ft (breckenridge.com).
This ranking therefore uses lift-served vertical and skiresort.info's measured piste-km throughout.
Epic and Ikon brought cheaper passes and much bigger crowds.
A University of Utah Eccles Institute analysis finds that Epic and Ikon cover 52% of US lift capacity, and 86% in Colorado. Season-pass prices fell, walk-up day tickets rose about 60% since the 1990s, and the cheap passes are the main cause of today's crowding, lift lines and traffic (Eccles Institute).
What it means on the ground: Ikon's 2026-27 pass comparison lists blackout dates of Dec 26–30, Jan 16–17 and Feb 13–14 for its restricted tiers (Ikon).
Jackson Hole again requires Ikon and Mountain Collective holders to reserve (SnowBrains).
"On the pass" means something different in Europe.
Epic gives only 3 consecutive days at Ski Arlberg, and only if you book partner lodging directly. It gives 5 consecutive days at Verbier and 7 at Les 3 Vallées (epicpass.com).
Ikon's Dolomiti Superski days work only Nov 15–Apr 15 (Ikon).
The #1 world pick, Tignes–Val d'Isère, is on no US mega-pass at all.
Altitude sickness is a real risk at the high Colorado resorts.
The CDC says about 25% of visitors sleeping above 8,000 ft (2,450 m) in Colorado get acute mountain sickness. It names Vail (lodging 8,150 ft) and Breckenridge (9,600 ft) specifically and advises taking it easy for the first 48 hours, with no alcohol (CDC Yellow Book 2026).
Big Alpine villages mostly sit lower (Zermatt's lowest lift base is about 1,560 m per skiresort.info), even though their lifts go higher.
Average snowfall for every Alpine/Dolomite resort, Lake Louise, Taos and Niseko. There is no official figure, and the OnTheSnow values are missing or contradictory, so snowfall is not scored for these resorts.
Closing dates not yet officially announced: Vail, Breckenridge, Palisades, Mammoth, Snowbird, Jackson Hole, Whistler. Deer Valley's is only projected. Where shown, these are OnTheSnow or skiresort.info projections.
skiresort.info day-ticket prices don't say which season they apply to.
Big Sky "first full season of Explorer Gondola/Kircliff" comes from a search summary of the press kit. The page itself wasn't opened.
Val Gardena's two new 10-person gondolas are listed by skiresort.info but not in Dolomiti Superski's official 26/27 release.
Revelstoke's lower gondola rope replacement comes from a secondary travel site.
Lift counts use skiresort.info's method and differ from resort claims: Deer Valley 41 vs 32 official, Whistler 27 vs 36.
Village scores are skiresort.info's editorial star ratings, which are subjective by nature.
Transfer times are resort or tourism-board estimates for normal conditions.
Close calls: Revelstoke (#10 world) drops below Lake Louise without snowfall scoring. Telluride (69.3) and Alta (68.4) only just miss the US top 10.
Chamonix was scored on Grands Montets alone (29 km) because skiresort.info lists the valley's areas separately, so its score understates the whole valley.
