Switzerland

Aela (Maloja)

Off season

No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.

Typical snowfall
214cm

A weather-model figure, worked out the same way for every ski area, and lower than what actually falls. Use it to compare ski areas, not against the resort’s own totals. How we measure →

Elevation
1,821–2,133 m
Across
1.5 km

We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified.

Aela (Maloja), in Switzerland, runs from 1,821 m at the base to 2,133 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.5 km across, with 4 marked runs and 3 lifts (about 3.1 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 214 cm of snowfall a season, 1,008th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 185th in Switzerland. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2023/24 (346 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2022/23 (128 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (56 and 55 cm on average).

How much snow it gets

Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Seasonal snowfall
214cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
128cm
The middle winter of the 12: 212 cm. The best: 346 cm.
World rank
1008
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
185
of 283 in Switzerland
Elevation rank
56
Highest to lowest, of 283 in Switzerland. The centre point sits at 1,947 m, 510 m above the national median.

Compared with what is nearby

Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.

Ski areaDistanceSeasonal snowfallWorld rank
Casaccia3.2 km191 cm1235
Bivio7.6 km214 cmsame grid cell1008
Corvatsch-Furtschellas9.3 km210 cm1057
Avers13.0 km241 cm795
St. Moritz14.0 km210 cm1057

Runs and lifts

Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Marked runs
4
Run length
3.1km
Lifts
3
Vertical
312m
Top 2,133 m · base 1,821 m

Run map

IntermediateAdvanced Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.
Run map

Drag to move around, and use + and − to zoom. On a phone, swipe to move and pinch to zoom in further.

Slope shape, difficulty and lift types

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map1.2 km
Steepest pitch27°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs11.3°

Which way the slopes face

North 31%
East 8%
South 1%
West 59%

Only 39% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. The most common direction is west (59%).

By difficulty

Intermediate 3 · 1.9 km
Advanced 1 · 1.2 km

Lift types

  • Rope tow2
  • Platter1

See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗

Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

The most snow falls in December. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 55 cm, about the same as the median of 60 cm.

56cm
Dec
55cm
Jan
48cm
Feb
55cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 214 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2022/23 with 128 cm; the biggest was 2023/24 with 346 cm (2.7 times as much). For 47% of the 283 ski areas in Switzerland the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.

210
214
153
302
245
219
301
153
128
346
159
141
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26

Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.

Live cameras

This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.

Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.

Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com

Map

The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.

Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗

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