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...
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.