No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.
Typical snowfall
159cm
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
2,022–2,263 m
Across
1.2 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.
Sleeping Giant Winter Sports Area, in United States, runs from 2,022 m at the base to 2,263 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.2 km across, with 18 marked runs and 3 lifts (about 5.6 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 159 cm of snowfall a season, 1,553rd (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 170th in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2016/17 (254 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2023/24 (120 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (45 and 32 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
159cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
120cm
The middle winter of the 12: 151 cm. The best: 254 cm.
World rank
1553
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
170
of 534 in United States
Elevation rank
117
Highest to lowest, of 534 in United States. The centre point sits at 2,077 m, 1,549 m above the national median.
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
18
Run length
5.6km
Lifts
3
Vertical
241m
Top 2,263 m · base 2,022 m
Run map
EasyIntermediateAdvancedLift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Longest run on the map0.6 km
Steepest pitch32°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs11.6°
Which way the slopes face
North63%
East34%
South1%
West2%
97% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
The most snow falls in February. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 35 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
45cmDec
32cmJan
49cmFeb
35cmMar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 159 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2023/24 with 120 cm; the biggest was 2016/17 with 254 cm (2.1 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States the leanest winter was 2015/16; here it was a different one.
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.