My completely subjective ski town tier list
Intro & Tier Definitions
I've been mulling over a ski town tier list in my head for a few weeks and I was just thinking of putting it on paper when all the reddit stuff happened. So instead of posting it to /r/skiing I'm posting it here. This is completely subjective and is only based on the relatively small number of ski towns I've lived in or visited. My ulterior motive here is to get your thoughts on additions to this list along with which tier they should fall into... specifically S Tier places I haven't visited. I'm not doing any research - this is strictly based on my opinions from places I've personally been to.
A quick note: I'm only thinking about the towns themselves here. Not the quality of skiing, snowfall, or anything else. For the purposes of this ranking system, a 200' hill in the Midwest with a great little town at the base would fall into S Tier while 10,000 acre mega-resort with a $10B purpose-built resort village would fall into B Tier.
Here's my completely subjective ranking system:
S Tier: S tier is the "perfect mountain town". These towns typically existed prior to the ski area, and still have a strong community of locals living right in town keeping things vibrant (admittedly, in most places short term rentals have made that community smaller). The towns are also right at the base of the mountain; if they didn't run the plows you could ski from the top of the highest peak right down onto main street, pop your skis off, and start après.
A Tier: These towns are S Tier towns but for one problem - they're just a little too far from the actual ski area to ski right into town. You're going to have to hop in your car or take a bus, or take a long bike ride to get to town. While these towns are still amazing, beautiful places, they're not quintessential perfect towns for that one reason alone. I think for the purposes of this discussion the town has to be within a few minutes of the ski area. Most of these towns will have a B Tier style village at the base as well, but the village isn't the focus here.
B Tier: These towns aren't really "towns". They're purpose-built shopping malls or villages made for the ski area with condos and hotels. Unlike A Tier towns, they don't have a nearby "real" town to tie onto. They may be big and vibrant villages, but they don't have (many) locals living in the core village area, and they never have.
C Tier: Basically a parking lot. Maybe a bar, cafeteria, and a ski rental shop. Usually have a larger town nearby to support some locals, but it's going to be too far away to feel like it's part of the ski area scene. Finally, I'm not really filling out C-Tier that much unless it has an interesting anchor town within 30 minutes or so. I'm also leaving off the dozens of Midwest and East Coast ski areas that I've been to because I frankly haven't skied east of the Rockies in so long that I don't think I could properly categorize them based on memory.
S Tier
- Telluride
- Breckenridge
- Park City
- Aspen (Ajax)
- Heavenly: If memory serves, you can't actually ski to town. But you take a gondola down to town instead of a car/bus so I'm counting it as S Tier. Also South Lake is an interesting take on a ski town. I was on the fence but I'm leaving it in S Tier.
- Kleine Scheidegg-Männlichen-Grindelwald-Wengen: you have to take a train to Interlaken but I think the "villages" here count as actual towns, so this is S Tier.
A Tier
- Steamboat Springs: Almost S Tier. I think if you really tried you could ski from the top of Pony Express into town.
- Silverton
- Whitefish: should maybe be B Tier. I can't remember how close Whitefish (the town) was to the actual ski area.
- Crested Butte: I initially had this in S Tier based on memory, but after looking at the map I realized it was a little further from the base to town than I remembered.
B Tier
- Jackson Hole: this was a tough one. Jackson, WY is one of the coolest towns I've ever been to. Teton Village is also a great little base area. But Jackson is just too far from the tram to really bump this up to A tier.
- Vail: I've lived here since 2015 and I haven't met a single person who lives in Vail Village or Lionshead year-round. The north side of the highway doesn't count as a town, it's really just an amalgamation of box stores, strip malls, and parking lots...
- Keystone
- Beaver Creek
- Aspen (Snowmass & Highlands): not really close enough to Aspen proper to go into A Tier. But close...
- Winter Park
- Big Sky
- Copper
- Squaw
- Kirkwood
C Tier
- Arapahoe Basin: close to Dillon / Frisco / Breck.
- Aspen (Buttermilk): I've only been here during X Games but I think without all that infrastructure they bring in it would just be a parking lot and a cafeteria. I might be wrong. Close to Aspen.
- Monarch: close to Salida.
- Ski Cooper: close to Leadville.
- Bachelor: close to Bend.
Edit: I'll append this list with your suggestions if you'd like to add to it.
Edit 2: The lists within the tiers are in no particular order. I just happened to type them in that order when I thought of them.
As someone who hasn't skied in over a decade, but went to Whitefish in an off-season not too long ago, I'd just like to reaffirm your placement in A Tier as the lift isn't too far from the town of Whitefish. The whole damn area is beautiful and I would really like to go during the season to check it out. But off-season was a great experience - taking the lift to the top, the great view, people picking huckleberries, and I wish I had the opportunity to bike down the mountain.
That whole area has a lot more of what I'd consider "real towns". Kalispell and Columbia Falls both seemed nice, and not just there solely for the pleasure of tourists.
Fun to see Whitefish being mentioned here. My dad lived there for a while and worked at some of the ski lodges nearby. We’d hear stories about to growing up!
This list feels very American focused, the issues listed in b and c tier towns seem to be mainly issues in the us. Ski towns that I am familiar with in Europe would by these qualifications almost all fall in to S tier, barring some smaller resorts up in the nordics.
In my defense, I live in America and can't really afford to ski Europe all that often. This list does include the one European ski area I've experienced. If you'll allow an extreme generalization about an entire continent with dozens of countries and hundreds of ski areas, Europe ski towns have three things going for them:
Could you let me know what towns you'd add to S Tier and other tiers? I'll add them to the original post and cite you.
I agree with these. I've only ever skied/snowboarded in Colorado and Utah. Well, that's not true. I've also been to Cascade in Wisconsin and Snow Creek in Missouri. But since neither actually have REAL mountains, rather just big hills, they don't count. Anyway, my favorites are Breckenridge and Keystone.
In Utah, I've mainly been to Brighton and Snowbird. And I've been to Park City a few times. I think I've been to Solitude once, but I can't remember. Was like...20yrs ago. I know I've never been to Alta, since they only allow skiing; no snowboarding. That's F-tier in my book.
Brighton definitely falls in C-Tier, but it's affordable. And fun! Plus, that's where I learned to snowbird (learned skiing at Ski Cooper). Or at least was affordable; again, been like 20yrs since I was last there. Given that it's basically a parking with some lifts and a small lodge, I can't imagine that it's no longer relatively affordable.
Snowbird is also C-Tier. It has more offerings than Brighton in terms of amenities and looks nicer. Even has a gondola with a restaurant at the top of the peak. But just like Brighton, the nearest real town is Salt Lake City or one of its suburbs.
I've been to just about every little ski hill within about a 10 hour drive of northern Indiana. But I haven't skied any of them in a good 15 years so I just can't remember which ones had towns.
But, for those that would fall in C Tier, IMO they do build them "correct" out there. Seems there's no place in the west that has the traditional big base lodge where granny can sit there at a big table knitting all day and watching all the stuff and all the kids come in and eat their brown bag lunches and grab a basket of fries from the cafeteria (if they want).. Now, if there even is a cafeteria or base lodge open to the public, they've got signs all over the place saying you're not allowed to brown bag and time limits for how long you can sit there and they've removed all the microwaves and toasters.
Only place I’ve ever skied is Cortina d’Ampezzo and I was shit! Understandably of course, as I it was literally my first time on the slope. By the end of the trip I had done a blue (or was it green? whichever is easiest) once or twice but was still having difficulty controlling my speed. It was scary going as fast as I was with so little control! My wife is basically a pro so I imagine I’ll have chances in the future to go. I do lice somewhat close to Tahoe now…