No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
- Elevation
- 2,024–2,583 m
- Across
- 5.1 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. Snow report on the official site ↗
Bear Valley, in United States, runs from 2,024 m at the base to 2,583 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 5.1 km across, with 45 marked runs and 8 lifts (about 27 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 602 cm of snowfall a season, 42nd of 3,069 worldwide and 3rd in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (1,234 cm), brought more than 8 times as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (140 cm). March is usually the snowiest month, with about 160 cm.
The nearest city of any size is Reno, about 118 km away in a straight line.
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. The weather model works on cells about 30 km across; ski areas in the same cell get the same figure, and these numbers cannot separate them.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkwood Mountain Resort | 21.0 km | 563 cm | 56 |
| Leland Snowplay | 29.0 km | 437 cm | 122 |
| Dodge Ridge Ski Area | 34.0 km | 562 cm | 57 |
| Sierra-at-Tahoe Ski Resort | 35.0 km | 548 cm | 66 |
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.
Run map
Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
Only 42% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Chairlift7
- Magic carpet1
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
Month by month, the most snow falls in March. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 160 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 602 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 140 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 1,234 cm (8.8 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States, the leanest winter was the same 2014/15: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
More places to look
Guides covering United States
- Which Famous Ski Resorts Actually Get the Most Snow? 24 Names, Measured Niseko is 526th in the world for snowfall. Zermatt is 554th, Jackson Hole 924th, Aspen 1,201st. Measured identically across 3,069 ski areas, the names everyone books and the places it actually snows turn out to be two different lists.
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. Across 2,888 ski areas: 39% of American runs are graded advanced or harder, and 9% of Austrian ones. Nobody thinks Austria is four times gentler. The grades are measuring different things.
- Niseko vs Whistler: Whistler Is the Outlier, Vail Is the Rule Whistler is the world's 29th snowiest ski area. Vail is 1,335th — and 288 Japanese ski areas get more snow than the resort that defines American skiing.