The 10 most popular ski resorts in the United States, ranked by annual skier visits.
Note: Winter Park, Copper, Park City, Squaw Valley and Killington could have higher annual skier visits but they chose not to make their numbers made public. Numbers are from 2012/13 ski season, the latest available.
No. 1 – Vail Mountain, CO
Annual Skier Visits: 1,634,250
No. 2 – Breckenridge Ski Resort, CO
Annual Skier Visits: 1,600,750
No. 3 – Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, CA
Annual Skier Visits: 1,128,500
No. 4 – Keystone Resort, CO
Annual Skier Visits: 1,036,000
No. 5 – Steamboat Ski & Resort, CO
Annual Skier Visits: 923,576
No. 6 – Beaver Creek, CO
Annual Skier Visits: 919,000
No. 7 – Heavenly Mountain Resort, CA/NV
Annual Skier Visits: 890,750
No. 8 – Northstar California Resort, CA
Annual Skier Visits: 737,000
No. 9 – Snowmass, CO
Annual Skier Visits: 732,251
No. 10 – Okemo Mountain Resort, VT
Annual Skier Visits: 614,000
These resorts really deserve on the top ten. I want to visit them all someday.
2012-14 ski season? Which one is that?
It would be nice if you’re going to print a list like this to specify the time period (averaging a few seasons is best to even out the good/bad snow years) and to be as comprehensive as possible.
Travel & Leisure did this a few years back: http://www.epicski.com/t/128770/most-visited-us-ski-areas#post_1759817 The seasons were an average of 2008-2011.
Guess what? Look at the numbers above vs. the Travel & Leisure article published in January 2013. An EXACT match!
Nope. They left out places like Seven Springs and Holiday Valley who have higher skier visits than Okemo and Snowmass.
aka “10 ski resorts to completely avoid if you’re a shredder not a tourist”
The Northstar “annual skier visits” figure is from their record year (and record snowfall) of 2010-11, which was an outlier; it beat their previous record by around 80K. Their average during the four crappy winters since is about half that.
You can bet that the figures for all the Vail resorts use their highest-ever skier counts, not a 5 or 10 year average. The year to year numbers vary with the snowpack. The true skier count is a closely guarded number, so as not to influence trading.