The Mightiest U.S. Ski States, in 3 Charts
Colorado is king, Brah (which may be a good reason to go elsewhere)
For some reason, for Americans, states matter. A lot. That splintered, asymmetrical, often-senseless-looking network of lines sets the framework for how we think about politics, sports loyalties, weather, economics, wealth, transportation, recreation, and just about every other facet of American life.
Do the citizens of other nations feel such allegiance? I don’t mean that rhetorically. I’m never aware, when I’m in France, for example, what state I’m in (Google says they don’t have them). But when an American asks “where are you from?” this is the information they are seeking. Military kids hate this question. I kind of do too. Am I “from” Michigan, where I grew up, or New York, where I’ve lived most of my time as a grown-up? Depending upon my answer, the asker is going to sketch a different set of impressions about me.
If someone asks you this question on a chairlift, they are mainly trying to determine if you’re a local or a tourist. And the notions they form around you based upon your answer will also include where you ski and the typical quality of that skiing.
If you’re from a “ski state,” that is. Meaning a state with at least one ski area. In good years, there are 37 of them – Cloudmont, Alabama, seems to spin its ropetow every other winter or so. But each state’s profile is vastly different. New York has 50 ski areas. Connecticut, just next door, has five. Colorado recorded more than 14 million skier visits last winter, while Wyoming, its topside neighbor, clocked just a touch over 1 million. Montana holds three-and-a-half times more skiable acres than Vermont, but recorded less than half the number of skier visits for the 2023-24 ski season.
So how do we contextualize and consider ski states? Here are three ways:
By number of ski areas
This one’s always a winner in chairlift trivia: which state has the most ski areas? Again, because we are Americans, we care. And also because we are Americans we are surprised that the answer is not “Colorado.” But it isn’t:
Kind of interesting, right? Who would guess that Utah, past and future Olympic host, ground zero for light-and-fluffy-like-God’s-feather-pillow-exploded snowstorms, would rank 12th among U.S. states in number of ski areas? But there you go.
You can view the full state-by-state breakdown here, and the full list of active ski areas by state here.
By number of skier visits
This is where our perceptions of skiing more closely align with lived experience. Just three states – Colorado, California, and Utah – account for nearly half of U.S. skier visits. Colorado, in fact, accounts for approximately the same number of skier visits as the bottom 25 ski states combined, which together are home to 232 ski areas!
“Bro, you’re doing the weird punctuation thing again. And now with the exclamation points?!?!”
I’m sorry Grammar Bro, I hate it too, but freaking look at this, Man:
“Yeah, wow that’s wild.”
Right? The numbers come from the ski industry’s definitive annual update: the Kotke End of Season & Guest Experience Report, compiled by RRC for the National Ski Areas Association. The state groupings are determined by the report’s authors, who note that, “to protect confidentiality, states with fewer than three ski areas have been combined with other states” (pg. 29). You can view more detailed attendance breakdowns here, along with numbers from the 2022-23 ski season.
By total skiable acres
This may be my favorite stat, and one that I’ve not seen elsewhere. This is where skier visits begin to more closely align with actual skiable footprint, as the acreage totals for Colorado, California, and Utah roughly mirror their percentage of total skier visits:
But these figures expose additional nuance when considered alongside the charts above: Vermont, ranked eighth by skiable terrain, ranks fourth in skier visits (again, likely because ski areas in the East and West tend to measure skiable terrain in different ways). Idaho, ranked fifth by skiable acres with 17,227, is number 11 by skier visits, suggesting that this is the place to dodge crowds. To underscore the point: Idaho’s skiable area is just a touch below the combined 17,333 acres occupied by New England’s six states and 99 ski areas, which together account for more than four times the skier visits. New York – tops by number of ski areas – ranks 11th in the skiable terrain category. And the state’s 5,047 total acres add up to less than the skiable footprint of 5,317-acre Vail Mountain.
You can view the state-by-state acreage breakdowns here. They feed off of THE U.S. AMERICAN LIFT-SERVED SKIING MASTERCHART, formerly known as the Pass Tracker 5001, which has become my all-purpose dumping ground for Crap I’m Tired of Constantly Looking Up Elsewhere (yes I know it looks like shit and many parts of it are incomplete; but this is not the Library of Congress - it’s a personal reference document that I’ve made available to whoever cares, and the “under construction” sign will likely be hanging on the perimeter fence for at least the next several years).
But at least I’ve finally figured out how to do what every fifth-grader in America is probably already capable of: keeping these charts updated in real time. Meaning that when I mark a ski area dormant or update its skiable acreage to capture an expansion (as I’ve already done with Monarch, Colorado), the associated charts update immediately. The links above, then, may reflect different numbers than the charts embedded in this article.
One additional note on acreage: I don’t have an acreage estimate for 68 of our 505 active-this-winter ski areas. Most of those likely total 10 acres or fewer, but please share any stats you may have and I’ll update the chart. And no, I’m not going to open-source it like some ski wiki. It’s messy enough with just me doing it.
It would be cool to see a chart of skier visits/acre (a bar chart would probably make more sense than a pie chart). That might approximate crowdedness, although there are a lot of factors there, including uphill capacity.
Speaking of which, measuring uphill capacity would be cool too. Chairlift seats * vert / hour. Comparing a ski areas' uphill capacity vs acreage on a scatter plot might indicate which places get tracked out the fastest on a pow day, assuming they are running full chairs.
On the note of acreage for Dollar Mountain, Sun Valley, I know it’s a lot bigger than just 10 acres. Not sure if you consider Peakrankings an accurate source, but they claim it has a 189 acre footprint.