2025 PeakRankings Mountain Score and Rankings Adjustments: Full Changes
As part of the capital investments at dozens of resorts during the 2024-25 season, several mountains have seen significant changes to overall experiences, and we’ve updated our Mountain Scores to highlight that appropriately.
Most of these updates reflect real changes in guest experience across dozens of resorts, but in a few cases, we’ve re-calibrated things to better highlight the strengths and weaknesses of certain mountains. In this piece, we’re breaking down all the updates, starting with our 2025 score changes, and then going through how they affect our overall North American ski resort rankings.
Score Adjustments
New lifts improve Powder Mountain’s Challenge, Lifts, and Navigation scores, but new terrain access restrictions hurt Terrain Diversity, Crowd Flow, and Mountain Aesthetic.
Powder Mountain
Lifts Score Change: 2 to 3; Navigation Score Change: 6 to 7; Challenge Score Change: 6 to 7
Crowd Flow Score Change: 10 to 9; Terrain Diversity Score Change: 8 to 7; Mountain Aesthetic Score Change: 7 to 6
Powder Mountain saw an explosive suite of changes this season that, ultimately, led it to have a very similar score to last year’s experience.
Let’s start off with the good. Powder Mountain installed three new lifts this season, adding lift service to the Lightning Ridge area for the first time, replacing the agonizingly long Paradise lift with a high-speed quad, and installing a life-cycle replacement for the Timberline triple, replacing it with a fixed-grip quad. These changes add approximately 430 acres of new lift-served terrain, fix a discontinuity in the lift network by adding a link from the main mountain to the Sundown area for the first time, and make the advanced-oriented Paradise area much more enjoyable to lap. Notably, the Lightning Ridge lift brings the first-ever direct lift service to double-black-diamond terrain at the resort. Viewed as a whole, these changes bring significant improvements in the Lifts, Navigation, and Challenge departments.
However, Powder Mountain paired these upgrades with some extremely controversial policy changes. First off, the resort closed its Mary’s and Village lifts to the public, reserving access to these areas exclusively for Powder Mountain homeowners. In addition, the resort added a new quad lift up the Raintree area, but reserved this lift for private homeowners as well. The paid snowcat up this area has now been discontinued, although guests theoretically can still hike up to it. Despite the upgrades elsewhere around the resort, these terrain restrictions mean that Powder Mountain’s public lift-served footprint is actually a little bit smaller than it was last year. The resort has lost some really nice beginner and intermediate glades as a result of this public acreage shrink, which makes the terrain experience for these abilities slightly less unique than it used to be. There’s also something to be said for the moneyed vibe brought about by closing hundreds of acres of terrain to the public, and the signs for homeowner-only terrain—as well as the literal homeowner patrol standing at some of the private entrances—severely detract from the freeing and down-to-earth vibe that’s historically made the resort so special.
Closing off the Village and Mary’s lifts to the public has also created some potentially unintended consequences. Public guests who visited Powder Mountain this winter may have experienced something almost unheard of in years’ past: lift lines. Now that the Mary’s lift is no longer available, guests have to take the Sunrise surface lift to get anywhere in Cobabe Canyon. This one-person platter turned into somewhat of a chokepoint this past season, even with Powder Mountain’s cap on visitors, and even though lines are extremely rare elsewhere at the resort, we can’t justify keeping the resort at a perfect score for Crowd Flow any longer.
The new Deer Valley East expansion will continue over the next few years, but the first few projects have already improved this fancy Utah resort in a number of ways.
Deer Valley
Navigation Score Change: 5 to 6; Mountain Aesthetic Score Change: 4 to 5
But Powder Mountain wasn’t the only Utah mountain that made significant headlines this winter.
Nearby Deer Valley embarked on the first phase of a massive, multi-year expansion this past winter, and we’d say the biggest benefits actually came in relatively surprising areas. While the 300-acre terrain expansion wasn’t big enough to impact Deer Valley’s size score (the resort will have to wait until next year to see an adjustment in that category), the expanded terrain brought two key advantages over the rest of Deer Valley’s footprint—a full, continuous 3,000-foot vertical drop that doesn’t require a convoluted maze of lifts to get down, and a beautiful and isolated set of surroundings, that, at least so far, is devoid of excess man-made buildup. The new terrain thus far doesn’t bring much in the way of high-quality snow retention or challenge, but we feel that based on the 2024-25 season, it’s actually Deer Valley’s Navigation and Mountain Aesthetic scores that deserve a slight bump.
It remains to be seen whether these scores will remain static for the upcoming winter, as Deer Valley plans to introduce a staggering 2,900 additional acres next winter, and since the expansion was explicitly designed with real estate in mind, the lack of buildup may not last forever.
Big Sky’s new Madison 8 chair improves Crowd Flow in the former Moonlight Basin ski area, complementing previous lift upgrades across the front of this massive ski resort.
Big Sky
Lifts Score Change: 6 to 7; Challenge Score Change: 9 to 10 (with Tram), or 8 to 9 (without Tram)
Big Sky is in the midst of a huge, multi-year transformation, and this year’s upgrades have already brought some substantial improvements to the overall mountain experience. The big change this year was the new Madison 8 lift, which replaced the Six Shooter six-pack as the sole lift connecting the Madison side of the mountain with the rest of the resort.
On the surface, this may seem like a pleasant, if not life-cycle-oriented upgrade. But for those who have experienced the old Six Shooter lift before, they’ll know how much relief it will be to have the new Madison 8 in its place instead. The Madison 8 is already a modern lift in its own right, bringing eight-pack seating, bubbles for weather protection, and heated seats. But the chair also brings a 20% faster ride time than the six-pack, which shaves a full minute off the lengthy ride, and has thus far operated quite reliably in welcome contrast to the issue-prone Six Shooter. Finally, the Madison 8 brings a huge 50% capacity boost over the old lift, providing welcome crowd relief at one of Big Sky’s biggest historical chokepoints. In our view, this upgrade warrants a bump up in the lifts category for Montana’s biggest ski resort.
We’re also making an adjustment to Big Sky’s Challenge score for those who have access to the Lone Peak Tram (which, as of 2025, includes all lift ticket purchasers, select season passholders, and other visitors who choose to purchase a per-ride extra-cost add-on). Runs such as Big Couloir and the Gullies have easily-accessible, extremely high-consequence terrain that may not always involve mandatory straightlines, but requires technical prowess well above nearly every other lift-served ski trail in North America due to the sheer steepness—and consistency of said steepness. We feel this level of high consequence was not adequately captured in our previous score, and accordingly, we are moving Big Sky’s Challenge rating, at least with the Lone Peak Tram, to our highest score of 10. For those who don’t choose to purchase a tram add-on, similarly steep, consistently-long, and high-consequence terrain is available off the Headwaters Hike, and we are moving the non-tram Challenge score to a 9 accordingly.
The upgrade of the Sublette chair to a high-speed quad means that all major mountain areas at Jackson Hole are served by modern detachable chairlifts.
Jackson Hole
Lifts Score Change: 7 to 8; Facilities Score Change: 7 to 8; Resiliency Score Change: 9 to 8
Jackson Hole has gradually been upgrading its oldest lifts over the years, and the Sublette lift’s ascension from a fixed-grip to a high-speed quad might be the last step in that journey. With this installation, guests can lap the high-intermediate-to-expert-oriented Sublette area twice as fast as in years past, with the lift ride up now taking a swift four minutes. One might be surprised to hear that while still a quad, the new lift brings a 33% capacity increase over the outgoing model—although given this lift’s newfound popularity with its higher speed, one might argue that lines actually got slightly longer this year. Now that Sublette has been upgraded, Jackson Hole’s only remaining fixed-grip chairs are located in relatively minor areas or provide redundancy to faster alternatives.
We are also making a few adjustments to Jackson Hole’s mountain score in a few other categories. While we have historically rated the resort exceptionally high on the Resiliency scale, the mountain’s largely east-facing terrain means that fresh snow, while typically quite consistent, tends to deteriorate faster than at competing resorts with north-facing slopes. As a result, we feel that while Jackson Hole is still a generally reliable bet for a ski vacation, a drop in the Resiliency category from 9 to 8 is justified. On the other hand, however, we don’t think we gave Jackson Hole enough credit for its on-mountain facility setup in years past. Upon reflection, we believe that the Bear Flats Snack Shack at the base of the Sublette lift provides a better rest opportunity than we’d given the resort credit for previously. Taking the services here into account gives Jackson Hole a fairly comprehensive lodge setup for most resort areas (although there’s no denying that Bear Flats is not the same full-service restaurant as the Casper or Rendezvous Lodges), and as a result, we are shifting its Facilities score up from a 7 to an 8.
Lake Louise’s new Pipestone Express, the resort’s first-ever bubble lift, improves both lift logistics and facilities access on the front side.
Lake Louise
Lifts Score Change: 6 to 7; Facilities Score Change: 4 to 5
Lake Louise added a new lift this winter that may just seem to add some redundancy on the surface, but in reality brings a number of surprising practical benefits when you actually spend time at the resort. The new Pipestone Express bubble six-pack, which is Lake Louise’s first-ever bubble lift, provides a link from the top of the Juniper Express lift to the bottom of the Summit lift. Pipestone adds a new lift route up Lake Louise’s mid-mountain frontside, supplementing the existing Top of the World six-pack, and finally provides a real purpose for the out-of-base Juniper Express high-speed quad lift, which basically led to nowhere until Pipestone’s installation.
The first two benefits of the new Pipestone lift are obvious. First off, combined with the Juniper lift below it, the Pipestone chair now offers a second redundant lift route to the upper mountain, complementing the Glacier and Top of the World lifts that run to skiers’ left of them, and a third practical lift route out of the main base that leads to desirable terrain (supplementing the Grizzly Gondola). In addition, the new lift’s bubbles provide the first isolation from the elements of any mid-mountain lift at Lake Louise, taking some of the burden off of the gondola on cold days (and Lake Louise can see its fair share of extreme cold spells throughout a typical season).
But the real genius of the Pipestone lift is in its placement. While a mid-mountain lift, the new six-pack is placed low enough on the mountain to solve multiple previous logistical problems. First off, guests can now ski or ride the West Bowl without having to journey all the way back down to the main base to get back up the mountain, meaning that lapping the full vertical of this area only takes two lift rides (Pipestone and Summit), rather than the previous three. Some of the lower trails in the West Bowl are now directly lappable by the Pipestone lift. In addition, those coming from the mid-mountain Whitehorn Bistro restaurant can ski or ride directly to Pipestone rather than making the trek back to the base as well, fixing what was probably the most annoying part about stopping in at that lodge. It may only be one lift, but the Pipestone Express’s logistical benefits justify increases in both Lake Louise’s Lifts and Facilities scores in our view, and while Lake Louise’s existing Crowd Flow score of 8 is probably still justified in our view, the lift brings noticeable benefits in this area as well.
Banff Sunshine Village’s new Super Angel Luxury Express chair has a mouthful of a name, but it makes the crowds at the Teepee Town chair much more digestible on cold or windy days.
Banff Sunshine Village
Crowd Flow Score Change: 6 to 7
Lake Louise’s neighbor, Banff Sunshine Village, also added a new bubble six-pack lift this winter. The Super Angel Luxury Express replaces the old Angel Express high-speed quad, which ran in nearly the same alignment and had reached the end of what the resort considered its useful life. While the new Super Angel lift doesn’t add high-speed lift service in a new area, its addition has significantly improved the experience in the resort’s cold, windy, and highly-exposed upper mountain. If you’re wondering about the term “Luxury Express” this is just the term Banff Sunshine uses to refer to bubble lifts, and until now, the nearby Teepee Town Luxury Express was the only one on the mountain—and as the sole enclosed lift in this above-treeline area, it frequently saw some of the worst crowding at the resort, especially on cold days. With the Super Angel in place, Teepee Town crowding has seen significant relief and traffic between the two bubble lifts has split up nicely, and we’re bumping Banff Sunshine’s Crowd Flow score up accordingly.
After spending more time at Fernie this winter, we’re adjusting its Challenge score to better reflect its extreme terrain.
Fernie
Challenge Score Change: 8 to 9
We’re also bumping Fernie’s Challenge score up from an 8 to a 9 after realizing we hadn’t given the resort enough credit for just how gnarly its terrain can be. While this increase isn’t directly tied to any major new developments—though the resort did make an effort to keep Polar Peak open more consistently this season—it reflects a deeper appreciation for the intensity of what’s already on offer. Even outside of Polar Peak, Fernie features some seriously demanding lines, and the terrain off the peak itself includes marked trails with mandatory straightlines and potential air drops that can be as high as 10 to 20 feet depending on conditions. These lines are only open a handful of days each season, but the fact that they’re on the map speaks volumes.
Alpental’s Internationale chair spreads out crowds trying to reach the upper mountain or backcountry Back Bowls at this advanced-oriented Washington ski area.
Alpental
Crowd Flow Score Change: 3 to 5
This past season, Washington state’s Alpental saw the completion of a project that helped relieve one of the worst chokepoints we’ve ever seen at a North American ski resort. The newly added Internationale triple now offers a crucial secondary route to the upper mountain, which was previously only accessible via the substantially-overburdened Armstrong Express and Edelweiss lift combo. This addition—paired with last year’s installation of the Sessel triple out of the base—finally spreads out the resort’s advanced and expert crowds (which is basically everyone who’s there anyway). While it doesn’t serve every trail that the Armstrong / Edelweiss route does or offer high-speed lift service, the Internationale triple crucially provides an alternative and more direct way to the resort’s backcountry-esque back bowls—and provides a way to lap the resort’s back side without having to ski or ride all the way back to the base. As the closest advanced-oriented ski area to Seattle—and a relatively compact one at that—Alpental still sees weekend lines, but they are nowhere near the horrendous mess of previous years, and we are giving the mountain a substantial two-point Crowd Flow score bump accordingly. It is worth noting that the Edelweiss chair will be upgraded from a double to a triple chair this summer, which should help address some remaining crowd issues in that area.
Mammoth Mountain has historically had frustrating signage across the mountain, but new markings have cleared up many important intersections.
Mammoth
Navigation Score Change: 4 to 5
Next up, we have a resort that’s been putting in behind-the-scenes work to improve wayfinding. Over the past few seasons, Mammoth has quietly overhauled its signage, addressing longstanding issues that made navigating the mountain unnecessarily confusing. The resort has rolled out far more comprehensive maps—including directories to lodges—and redesigned its trail signage, replacing an outdated and often puzzling color-coding system. While not every sign on the mountain has been updated yet, the highest-traffic junctions and lower-mountain areas have seen noticeable improvements. These upgrades make getting around Mammoth easier than it used to be, and we’re bumping the resort’s Navigation score from a 4 to a 5 accordingly.
Utah’s Solitude has faced inconsistent openings in its expert-oriented Honeycomb Canyon zone in recent years, prompting us to lower its Resiliency score by one point.
Solitude
Resiliency Score Change: 8 to 7
Next up, we’re making a score adjustment we were hoping we’d never have to make. When it comes to Utah’s Solitude, the resort has experienced recurring issues with terrain accessibility, particularly in the expert-oriented Honeycomb Canyon, which accounts for a significant portion of the resort’s terrain. Ski patrol has been notably cautious when it comes to opening this zone, and according to the resort, ongoing issues with visitors ducking ropes have further delayed mitigation work. But for whatever the true reason may be, Honeycomb has experienced especially inconsistent and delayed openings over the past two seasons. As a result, the resort often feels much smaller than it appears on paper, with large swaths of terrain remaining closed even during stretches of decent conditions. While Solitude and the other Cottonwood Canyon ski areas often receive some of the best snow on the continent, Solitude's lower elevation within the canyon leaves it more vulnerable to marginal conditions compared to neighboring Brighton, or nearby Alta and Snowbird. This pattern has become too frequent to ignore—and, notably, is not endemic to most of its Utah competitors—and we’re dropping Solitude’s Resiliency score from an 8 to a 7 as a result.
The Aspen Snowmass region’s newest chairlift, which parallels the line of the out-of-base Village Express for much of its length, eases crowding out of the busy Snowmass Mall base.
Snowmass
Crowd Flow Score Change: 6 to 7
Aspen Snowmass has been making quite a few upgrades over the past couple of years, and this past season, the new Coney Express at Snowmass brought some notable logistical benefits. While in part a life-cycle upgrade—it replaced the aging Coney Glade Express quad as the primary lift for lapping the large terrain park—it also received a major lift line extension down to the Snowmass Mall, which is near the base of the resort. While the new Coney lift doesn’t provide service from the true bottom elevation of Snowmass—it loads a few hundred feet up from the Elk Camp Gondola and the Village Express six-pack—it does capture a huge amount of bus and condo traffic from the Snowmass Mall crowd, providing a much-needed capacity boost out of Snowmass’s main base. The new lift doesn’t serve any new terrain, but the extra throughput has earned the resort a bump from a 6 to a 7 in the Crowd Flow category.
Sun Peaks’ multi-year West Bowl project has brought not only a terrain expansion, but a high-speed lift to its upper mountain for the first time.
Sun Peaks
Lifts Score Change: 5 to 6
This past winter, British Columbia’s Sun Peaks received an upgrade that had been anticipated for over three years. The resort finally replaced its West Bowl T-Bar—which hadn’t operated since 2020—with a new high-speed quad serving not only that same terrain, but providing a small terrain expansion as well. The West Bowl Express finally revitalizes this temporarily-abandoned area with strong intermediate and advanced terrain, and notably, with the nearby Crystal and Burfield lifts being fixed-grip quads, it has also created the first high-speed upper mountain terrain pod on Sun Peaks’ front side. Although the terrain expansion is only 169 acres, the new West Bowl lift makes it much more desirable to spend time in Sun Peaks’ upper mountain—and while guests will still have to ride Crystal or Burfield to get to the West Bowl lift the first time, we’re bumping the resort’s Lifts score from a 5 to a 6 as a result of this upgrade.
New York’s Hunter Mountain will always have crowds, but the recent Broadway Express and Otis Quad chair installations have helped ease the worst congestion.
Hunter
Lifts Score Change: 6 to 7; Crowd Flow Score Change: 2 to 3
New York State’s Hunter Mountain is one of the most crowded ski resorts in the country on peak weekends, but luckily, a handful of upgrades this winter helped address that. First off, the resort replaced its old Broadway quad lift with the Broadway Express high-speed six-pack, adding a second high-speed lift route out of its main base. The resort then took the old Broadway lift and reinstalled it in a new alignment as the Otis Quad, replacing the old, seldom-open E double lift and providing new access to a previously-underutilized low-intermediate terrain pod. It is worth noting that despite Otis’s revitalization, the surface lift directly above the new quad is basically abandoned at this point.
As the closest Epic Pass mountain to New York City, there’s no escaping crowds at Hunter on weekends. But these two new lifts have helped quite a lot. By upgrading Broadway from a quad to a six-pack, the resort saw notable lift line relief on weekends, with crowding becoming at least a bit more manageable. Notably, the Otis Quad remained relatively empty this year, providing guests progressing to intermediate terrain with a new escape from the crowds. In addition, now that the Broadway lift has been upgraded, Hunter guests can now access beginner terrain from a high-speed lift for the first time. The Broadway lift also underwent a realignment, making access to the upper mountain F lift, which provides an alternate way up to the resort summit, much simpler. Hunter will never be a crowd-free experience, but these investments certainly justify upticks in both our Lifts and Crowd Flow categories.
Gore Mountain’s North Creek Ski Bowl area has historically been a bit of an afterthought, but the new Hudson Chair brings high-speed lift service to this area for the first time—and paves the way for this zone to move from weekend-only to seven-day-a-week operations.
Gore
Lifts Score Change: 5 to 6
Finally, we are giving a bump to another ski area with a new high-speed quad lift this year—New York State’s Gore Mountain. In its isolated North Creek Ski Bowl area, the resort replaced its Hudson triple chair with a new high-speed quad. While this area did not operate daily this year, it’s expected to move to a seven-day-a-week cadence next year following base area upgrades this summer. The new lift provides faster service to this low-elevation terrain pod—which might appeal at a first glance to lower-ability skiers and riders but genuinely has some harder terrain—and we’re ticking up Gore’s Lifts score accordingly.
Washington’s Alpental and Utah’s Deer Valley are the two biggest movers in our rankings this season.
Rankings Takeaways
A few notable rankings shifts have occurred with these Mountain Score changes:
Two resorts—Deer Valley and Alpental—are tied as this year’s biggest winners, each jumping eight spots compared to 2024. Deer Valley now ranks ahead of several highly competitive Western resorts, including Whitefish, Steamboat, Sun Valley, and Palisades Tahoe. Meanwhile, Alpental leapfrogs a number of strong regional players like Monarch, Willamette Pass, Sunday River, and Dodge Ridge.
Other climbers include Mammoth, Sun Peaks, Lake Louise, Fernie, and Gore, each improving by more than one position in our North American standings. On the flip side, Solitude is the only resort to drop more than a single spot this year, falling from 41st to 43rd overall and from 7th to 8th in Utah. And ironically, despite major operational changes, Powder Mountain sees no change at all to its overall score or ranking. Another change worth noting is Big Sky, which climbs from 13th to 12th overall, edging out Alyeska.
These changes have also sparked some real shakeups at the top of our rankings:
Lake Louise debuts in our top 10 at #8, knocking Telluride, Snowbasin, and Beaver Creek down a spot each (and knocking Beaver Creek out of the top 10 entirely).
Just above it, Vail falls one spot to #7, overtaken by Snowmass, which rises to #6 on the back of crowd flow improvements from the new Coney Express. With that shift, Snowmass also claims the title of top-ranked ski resort in Colorado, nudging Vail to second in the state despite its sheer size.
Despite the increased competition from Snowmass, Banff Sunshine holds its rank at #5. The new Super Angel lift has significantly improved flow, which pairs with the resort’s stunning footprint and terrain variety to deliver a remarkably strong experience.
But the runner-up slot this year now goes to Jackson Hole, swapping places with Alta (neighboring Snowbird remains at #4). Thanks to all of its infrastructure improvements over the past few years, the Wyoming resort now gets our second place spot in North America, and our #1 slot for the United States overall.
Our top peak in North America remains Whistler Blackcomb. However, the Mountain Score gap between Whistler and Jackson Hole is now just a single point, marking the first time Whistler Blackcomb has not had a multi-point score advantage over its nearest North American competitor. Depending on what happens next season, we could be looking at the first time in PeakRankings history that Whistler Blackcomb doesn’t claim the crown.
What do you think of these rankings? Anything you would change or disagree with? Let us know in the comments below.
Our updated list of the Top 10 ski areas in North America includes the addition of Lake Louise, while Jackson Hole and Snowmass have climbed the ranks as well. The 2024 rankings are provided on the right-hand side for reference.
