An in-depth video review of Heavenly Mountain Resort, a ski area located in South Lake Tahoe, CA and Stateline, NV.
See our full resort breakdown and written review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/heavenly
An overview of the aprés ski scene in South Lake Tahoe, the town right at the bottom of Heavenly Mountain Resort. In addition to an extensive bar and restaurant scene, the town uniquely boasts beaches and casinos.
Heavenly is a ski resort located in South Lake Tahoe, California and Stateline, Nevada. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/heavenly
An in-depth video review of Kirkwood Mountain Resort, a ski area located about an hour south of Lake Tahoe in Kirkwood, CA.
See our full resort breakdown and written review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/kirkwood
A run down Timberline's Magic Mile area between Gordo's Mile and Otto Lang. During our visit, a new layer of powder masked some hidden obstacles, such as rocks, on ungroomed paths.
Timberline is a ski area on Mount Hood about an hour east of Portland, Oregon. We haven’t fully reviewed this resort yet, but see our initial impressions on Timberline and the other Mount Hood ski areas here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/initial-impressions-mount-hood-resorts
An in-depth video review of Breckenridge, a ski area located in the Colorado Front Range. Filmed in March and April 2022.
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Breckenridge here. See our full Colorado rankings here.
Northstar's Highlands Gondola services village condos and parking, offering direct mid-mountain access. But this pulse gondola uses fixed-grip cabins rather than the detachable grips found on a typical gondola, resulting in an experience that may surprise some first-time riders.
This lift tops out at the mid-mountain Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe and was built as part of the hotel development.
Northstar is a ski resort located in Truckee, California near Lake Tahoe. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/northstar
An in-depth video review of Beaver Creek Resort, a ski area located in Eagle County, Colorado, about two-and-a-half hours west of Denver.
Overall Mountain Score: 77/100 — #2 (tied) of 10 in Colorado
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Snow: 8/10
Resiliency: 8/10
Size: 7/10
Terrain Diversity: 7/10
Challenge: 9/10
Lifts: 9/10
Crowd Flow: 8/10
Facilities: 9/10
Navigation: 6/10
Mountain Aesthetic: 6/10
See our full resort breakdown and written review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/beaver-creek
See our Mountain Score criteria:
https://www.peakrankings.com/content/mountain-score-thresholds
Heavenly’s Olympic area boasts some of our favorite intermediate glade terrain in the Tahoe area. But be sure to cut out at the right point—or you’ll be subject to advanced pitches and a painfully slow lift ride.
Run recorded in March 2020. Conditions were slightly below average for the time of year.
Heavenly is a ski resort located in South Lake Tahoe, California and Stateline, Nevada. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/heavenly
A run down Squaw Valley’s expert Silverado area, starting at Trail 90 and filtering into Billy’s, just two days after it opened for the season.
Silverado requires a substantial base to open, and the area typically isn’t up and running until quite late in the winter. This territory didn’t open at all during the COVID-curtailed 2019-20 season.
Squaw Valley is a ski resort located in Olympic Valley, CA, near Lake Tahoe. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/squaw-valley
An in-depth video review of Snowbasin, a ski area located just north of Salt Lake City, Utah.
An in-depth video review of Mount Hood Meadows, a ski area located on the southeastern flank of Mount Hood, Oregon. Filmed in January and April 2021.
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Mount Hood Meadows here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/mount-hood-meadows
See our full Oregon rankings here: https://www.peakrankings.com/oregon-rankings
See our full West Coast rankings here: https://www.peakrankings.com/west-coast-rankings
A run down Northstar’s Corridor trail in December 2020. From a strictly technical sense, we feel this is Northstar’s most challenging marked run (other black-diamond trails feature fewer obstacles but boast much longer pitches). Thanks to its location below the Comstock Express chair, locals refer to this run as the “Hollywood Line.”
Still, this pitch is nowhere near as formidable as those offered by competing Lake Tahoe resorts. While Northstar receives a 6/10 for challenge in our ratings, this is much lower than the 8/10s earned by Heavenly and Sierra-at-Tahoe—and substantially inferior to the monumental 10/10s boasted by Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, and Kirkwood.
Relatively early-season conditions still existed on the day of this clip, but the obstacles we navigated stay present throughout the season.
Northstar is a ski resort located in Truckee, California near Lake Tahoe. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/northstar
An in-depth video review of Steamboat, a destination ski resort located in northern Colorado. Filmed in December 2022 and January 2023; conditions were excellent at the time.
A run down Telluride's Kant-Mak-M, a double-black diamond trail off the Plunge lift. Steep and ungroomed, this run is 1,600 feet of full-fledged workout.
Telluride is a southwestern Colorado ski resort located within the San Juan Mountains. It scores especially well for terrain diversity and challenge in our ratings. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/telluride
To go along with their new gondola connection, the two areas formerly known as Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows now have a new name: Palisades Tahoe. This name change comes in the wake of calls for businesses to remove emblems of past minority oppression, with the word “squaw” having been used as a slur against Indigenous North American women.
Officials say the name change was heavily influenced by the extreme terrain features the area is known for. Unsurprisingly, the move has been met with some controversy.
See Palisades Tahoe's full press release on the name change: https://www.palisadestahoe.com/new-name
See our full resort breakdown and outgoing written review for Squaw Valley (the Palisades Tahoe Olympic Valley side) here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/squaw-valley
See our full resort breakdown and outgoing written review for Alpine Meadows (the Palisades Tahoe Alpine Meadows side) here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/alpine-meadows
A lap down Alpine Meadows' Sympathy Face, one of the only trails exclusively served by the Roundhouse lift. This tree terrain is quite technical, with steep, twisty pitches and considerable exposed rock on this mid-December day.
An in-depth video review of Brighton, a ski area located in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah near Salt Lake City. Filmed in March 2021.
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Brighton here. See our full Utah rankings here.
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An in-depth video review of Sunday River, a ski area located in western Maine. Filmed in January 2022; conditions were typical for the time of year.
We visited this Banff SkiBig3 resort to get some powdery early-season turns in, but the extraordinarily frigid temperatures caught us off guard.
We rank the Lake Tahoe ski areas in order of overall mountain experience, and we highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
An in-depth video review of Vail, a ski area in Eagle County, Colorado about two hours west of Denver. Filmed across January-March 2022.
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Vail here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/vail
See our full Colorado rankings: https://www.peakrankings.com/colorado-rankings
A run down Little Burn at Copper Mountain, an intermediate trail that seldom receives grooming. This run is a great place to practice bumps with little consequence (except potentially making a fool of yourself in front of lift riders).
Copper is a ski resort located in Summit County, Colorado, about an hour and a half west of Denver. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/copper
An in-depth video review of Okemo, a ski area located in south-central Vermont. Filmed across two different trips in December 2019 and February 2022.
An in-depth video review of Telluride, a remote ski resort in southwestern Colorado. Filmed in March 2020 and March/April 2022.
An in-depth video review of Arapahoe Basin, a ski area located in the Colorado Front Range. Filmed across various dates in December 2021, April 2022, February 2023, and April 2023.
A top-to-bottom run in Kirkwood's Cornice area, starting at the Wagon Wheel Bowl and filtering into The Drain.
Unfortunately, this run was recorded in March 2020 (and not during today's epic pow day). Conditions were below average for the time.
Kirkwood is a ski area located about an hour south of Lake Tahoe in Kirkwood, CA. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/kirkwood
Vail Resorts is now the largest North American mountain resort company in history, operating 40 ski and snowboard destinations around the world. We dive into the economics behind how Vail Resorts works, how profits have driven some of the recent decisions the company has made, and even how much money it pays to be an executive there.
Okemo completed a series of major lift projects for 2021-22, and we headed there to check out the new experience.
For more on Okemo, check out our comprehensive mountain review. Additionally, check out our full Vermont destination resort rankings.
A run down Squaw Valley’s Lower Dog Leg trail, off the Red Dog and Far East Express lifts, during Thanksgiving Weekend. Conditions were typical of the early season, with thin cover and protruding shrubs in many places. Wind levels were relatively high on the day of this recording.
Squaw Valley is a ski resort located in Olympic Valley, California near Lake Tahoe. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/squaw-valley
An in-depth video review of Snowmass, the largest ski resort in the Aspen/Snowmass conglomerate.
The resort is located in the town of Snowmass Village, about half an hour from Aspen, Colorado. This video was filmed in early March 2021; conditions were okay during the first leg of our trip but became excellent after an 18-inch storm.
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Snowmass here. See our full Colorado rankings here.
BUY OUR MERCH: https://www.peakrankings.com/store
An in-depth analysis of Sierra-at-Tahoe's recovery from the Caldor Fire, which caused significant damage to the resort in August 2021.
An in-depth video review of Copper, a large ski resort in the Colorado Front Range approximately two hours from Denver. This video was filmed across several different days in February 2020 and December 2021, with varying conditions throughout.
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Copper here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/copper
See our full Colorado rankings here: https://www.peakrankings.com/colorado-rankings
Day tripping to a mountain a short drive from New York City in early December? Is that a crazy idea? Last weekend, we found out for ourselves.
The savviest budgeting tricks can save you hundreds of dollars on your ski trip, even at the highest-end destinations.
An in-depth video review of Big Sky, a massive ski area located in the Rocky Mountains of southern Montana.
An in-depth video review of Crested Butte, a remote ski resort in the Colorado Rockies.
This video was filmed across in early March 2021; conditions were typical for the time of year.
Featuring our new theme!
The Straw that Stirs the Drink
Schuyler Schwarz
Lift ticket prices have risen to astronomical levels, but even in today's world, there are still deals to be had.
Across the hundreds of ski resorts across North America, and many other regions around the world—you’ll see the same three symbols: a green circle, a blue square, and black diamond. How do they compare?
We took our first turns at Powder Mountain, one of the hidden gems of the Utah ski scene. But a bit of lightning threw a wrench in the day.
Filmed on March 13, 2022.
Powder Mountain is a ski area in the Wasatch Range north of Salt Lake City, Utah. Our full review will be out before the 2022-23 season.
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A run down Heavenly's High Five and Double Down trails during opening weekend 2020. These trails are typically groomed during the core season, but they were left ungroomed today. Conditions were thin cover but excellent for early season.
See our detailed take on this day here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/observations-from-heavenlys-opening-weekend
Heavenly is a ski resort located in South Lake Tahoe, California and Stateline, Nevada. See our full mountain review here: https://www.peakrankings.com/content/heavenly
