Heavenly
Heavenly Ski Resort is a popular ski and snowboard destination located in Lake Tahoe, California. With over 4,800 acres of skiable terrain and a vertical drop of 3,500 feet, Heavenly Ski Resort offers a variety of trails for skiers and snowboarders of all abilities. The resort features several terrain parks, including the Mott and Killebrew Canyons parks, which offer a range of features and challenges for freestyle skiers and snowboarders.
Heavenly Ski Resort receives an average of around 360 inches of snowfall per season, which allows for a long ski season that typically runs from November through April. In addition to downhill skiing and snowboarding, Heavenly Ski Resort also offers cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and other winter activities.
Heavenly has a variety of on-mountain dining and lodging options, but no ski in ski out properties. In fact, the only ski in ski out lodging at Heavenly is The Ridge Tahoe, which is owned and operated by Holiday Inn Club Vacations.
Heavenly Ski Resort does not offer night skiing.
We recently ranked all of California's ski resorts, so you can see where Heavenly stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Season Passes
Heavenly is a part of the Epic Ski Pass network. This allows you to buy one season pass, and ski at most of the Vail owned and operated slopes with it throughout the year. There are a handful of types of Epic lift ticket passes available, ranging from 3-7 days, to season-long.
Lodging Options
There are numerous options to stay at Heavenly around the resort. Check out the available options with the form below.
Heavenly Mountain Resort Terrain Overview
Heavenly has a total of 97 ski trails, which are serviced by 28 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 4,800 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 1,943 hectares, 7.5 square miles, or 19.4 square kilometers.
Heavenly's slopes see on average 360 inches (9.1 meters) of snowfall a year. That is almost 30 feet every year!
Total Runs
97
Lifts
28
Skiable Acres
4,800(19 km2)
Annual Snowfall
360"(914 cm)
Heavenly Ski Resort Elevation
Heavenly Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 10,067 feet, or 3,068 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 6,540 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 3,527 feet (1,075 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 10,067 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
10,067'(3,068 m)
Vertical Drop
3,527'(1,075 m)
Base Elevation
6,540'(1,993 m)
Heavenly Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
73.3out 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.
Skiable Terrain by Difficulty Level
Heavenly has 4,800 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Seeing as Heavenly is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, it's no surprise that over 92% of its trails rated as either intermediate or expert-level. This leaves only 8% of its skiable acres as beginner terrain.
Beginner
8%(384 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
62%(2,976 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
30%(1,440 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 Heavenly Ski Resort good for beginners?
This is one of the hardest ski areas in the country to ski at, so it is not great for beginners. Heavenly Ski Resort ranks in the top 10% of the most-difficult ski resorts in the country. It has 30% of its trails rated as expert, or black-diamond level.
Heavenly Ski Resort Location
Heavenly Ski Resort is located in the state of California, USA. This ski area is nearest the town of South Lake Tahoe, CA.
Address:
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150 USA
View on Google Maps
Website:
skiheavenly.com
GPS Coordinates:
38.93500, -119.94000
Getting to Heavenly Mountain Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Heavenly Ski Resort), its coordinates of 38.93500, -119.94000 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of South Lake Tahoe, 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 Heavenly Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reno–Tahoe International Airport | RNO | Reno, NV | 40 mi |
| Sacramento International Airport | SMF | Sacramento, CA | 90 mi |
| Oakland International Airport | OAK | Oakland, CA | 149 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 Heavenly.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sacramento Mather Airport | MHR | Sacramento, CA | 78 mi |
| Fresno Yosemite International Airport | FAT | Fresno, CA | 150 mi |
| Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport | STS | Santa Rosa, CA | 158 mi |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Heavenly 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 Heavenly Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sierra-at-Tahoe | South Lake Tahoe, CA | 8,852 ft | 53% | 11 mi |
| Homewood | Homewood, CA | 7,880 ft | 58% | 16 mi |
| Kirkwood | Kirkwood, CA | 9,800 ft | 68% | 19 mi |
| Granlibakken Tahoe | Tahoe City, CA | 6,350 ft | 15% | 19 mi |
| Palisades Tahoe - Alpine Meadows | Alpine Meadows, CA | 8,637 ft | 53% | 23 mi |
| Palisades Tahoe - Palisades Mountain | Olympic Valley, CA | 9,050 ft | 62% | 24 mi |
| Palisades Tahoe | Olympic Valley, CA | 9,050 ft | 62% | 24 mi |
| Northstar | Truckee, CA | 8,610 ft | 58% | 25 mi |
| Mount Rose | Reno, NV | 9,700 ft | 60% | 28 mi |
| Sugar Bowl | Truckee, CA | 8,383 ft | 53% | 30 mi |
| Tahoe Donner | Truckee, CA | 7,350 ft | 26% | 34 mi |
| Donner Ski Ranch | Norden, CA | 7,781 ft | 38% | 34 mi |
| Boreal | Soda Springs, CA | 7,700 ft | 30% | 35 mi |
| Soda Springs | Soda Springs, CA | 7,300 ft | 31% | 36 mi |
| Dodge Ridge | Pinecrest, CA | 8,200 ft | 54% | 52 mi |
| June Mountain | June Lake, CA | 10,090 ft | 68% | 93 mi |
Heavenly Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 10,067 ft |
| Base Elevation | 6,540 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 3,527 ft |
| Trails | 97 (8% Beginner, 62% Intermediate, 30% Expert) |
| Lifts | 28 |
| Skiable Acres | 4,800 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 360 inches |