Alpine Meadows Ski Resort is a ski area located in the state of California in USA. The resort is in the town of Olympic Valley, CA. We recently ranked all of California's ski resorts, so you can see where Alpine Meadows stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Alpine Meadows is a part of the Ikon Ski Pass network. This allows you to buy one lift pass, and ski at all or most of the Ikon-sponsored slopes with it throughout the year, depending on the type of pass you bought.
Alpine Meadows Lodging:
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort Terrain Overview
Alpine Meadows has a total of 100 ski trails, which are serviced by 13 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 2,400 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 971 hectares, 4 square miles, or 10 square kilometers.
Alpine Meadows's slopes see on average 402 inches (158 cm) of snowfall a year. That is almost 33 feet a year!
Total Runs
100
Lifts
13
Skiable Acres
2,400(10 km2)
Annual Snowfall
402"(158 cm)
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort Elevation
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 8,673 feet, or 2,643 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 6,385 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 2,288 feet (697 meters) high. This is referred to as the slope's vertical drop - or a measure of how high the skiable hill is.
The summit of 8,673 feet makes this ski resort one of the highest in the country. The average ski slope summit is around 4,000 feet, so this is extremely high compared to its peers.
Summit Elevation
8,673'(2,643 m)
Vertical Drop
2,288'(697 m)
Base Elevation
6,385'(1,946 m)
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
56out of 100
DID YOU KNOW?
At Parks & Trips, we've created a proprietary Difficulty Score that attempts to show how difficult a particular ski slope is. We get to this number by combining a number of metrics for each resort and comparing them to its peers. Most of the score is based off the amount of easy-intermediate-expert slopes by acreage and the maximum vertical drop of the overall resort, but also includes a few lesser-used metrics as well.
Our algorithm compares each resort’s metrics with all others in North America, then assigns each a Difficulty Score, which we use to rank them accordingly. Resorts with a lower score are easier to ski than those with a higher one. However, a high score does not mean that the resort does not have any easy slopes, or vice versa. This is just an overall score given to the resort based on all its metrics grouped together.
Skiiable Area by Difficulty Level
Alpine Meadows has 2,400 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Alpine Meadows's difficulty level is higher than average, which is because 40% of its ski trails are rated as intermediate, and another 35% as expert.
Beginner
25%(600 acres)
Beginner trails (identified by a green circle) are the easiest trails on the hill with a gradual 25% or less gradient, and are usually wide to accommodate beginner skiers.
Intermediate
40%(960 acres)
Intermediate trails (identified by a blue square) are usually the most popular and crowded runs, which have a slope of anywhere between 25-40%.
Expert
35%(840 acres)
Expert trails (identified by a black diamond... or two) are the hardest slopes on the mountain, and have very steep gradients over 40%.
Is Alpine Meadows Ski Resort good for beginners?
Alpine Meadows is above average in its difficulty level, so... probably not? It will depend on which trails you take since only 65% of its trails rated for either beginner or intermediate skill levels.
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort Location
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort is located in the state of California, USA. This ski area is nearby the town of Olympic Valley, CA.
Address:
Olympic Valley, CA 96146 USA
View on Google Maps
Website:
palisadestahoe.com/
GPS Coordinates:
39.17000, -120.22000
Getting to Alpine Meadows Ski Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Alpine Meadows Ski Resort), its coordinates of 39.17000, -120.22000 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Olympic Valley, CA to get close.
By Air: If you are coming in from across the country, then you may need to board an airplane to get here.
A large airport has scheduled major airline service with millions of passengers per year. This type of airport always accepts international flights. Here are the closest large airport(s) to Alpine Meadows Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reno–Tahoe International Airport | RNO | Reno, NV | 33 mi |
| Sacramento International Airport | SMF | Sacramento, CA | 81 mi |
| Oakland International Airport | OAK | Oakland, CA | 147 mi |
A medium-sized airport has scheduled regional airline service. This type of airport may or may not accept international flights. Here are the closest medium-sized airport(s) to Alpine Meadows.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sacramento Mather Airport | MHR | Sacramento, CA | 72 mi |
| Redding Municipal Airport | RDD | Redding, CA | 144 mi |
| Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport | STS | Santa Rosa, CA | 147 mi |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Alpine Meadows Ski Resort, but we didn't list them here due to the fact that no major airlines go through them.
Other Nearby Ski Resorts
Skiers will - especially if coming from far away - try and visit a couple different slopes all in the same trip. Here are the closest other ski slopes within 100 miles of Alpine Meadows Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palisades Tahoe | Olympic Valley, CA | 9,050 ft | 76% | 1 mi |
| Granlibakken Tahoe | Tahoe City, CA | 6,350 ft | 14% | 4 mi |
| Homewood | Homewood, CA | 7,800 ft | 51% | 7 mi |
| Sugar Bowl | Truckee, CA | 8,383 ft | 51% | 8 mi |
| Northstar | Truckee, CA | 8,610 ft | 51% | 9 mi |
| Donner Ski Ranch | Norden, CA | 7,781 ft | 37% | 12 mi |
| Tahoe Donner | Truckee, CA | 7,350 ft | 25% | 13 mi |
| Boreal | Soda Springs, CA | 7,700 ft | 29% | 13 mi |
| Soda Springs | Soda Springs, CA | 7,300 ft | 30% | 14 mi |
| Mount Rose | Reno, NV | 9,700 ft | 58% | 20 mi |
| Heavenly | South Lake Tahoe, CA | 10,067 ft | 71% | 22 mi |
| Sierra-at-Tahoe | South Lake Tahoe, CA | 8,852 ft | 51% | 26 mi |
| Kirkwood | Kirkwood, CA | 9,800 ft | 56% | 35 mi |
| Dodge Ridge | Pinecrest, CA | 8,200 ft | 52% | 70 mi |
Alpine Meadows Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 8,673 ft |
| Base Elevation | 6,385 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 2,288 ft |
| Trails | 100 (25% Beginner, 40% Intermediate, 35% Expert) |
| Lifts | 13 |
| Skiable Acres | 2,400 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 402 inches |