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Heavenly

Home / Ski Resorts / Heavenly Ski Resort

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!

Trails
Total Runs
97
Ski Lift
Lifts
28
Skier
Skiable Acres
4,800(19 km2)
Snow
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.

Mountain Summit
Summit Elevation
10,067'(3,068 m)
Vertical Drop
Vertical Drop
3,527'(1,075 m)
Mountain base
Base Elevation
6,540'(1,993 m)

Heavenly Ski Resort Difficulty Level

Score
Difficulty Score™
73.3out of 100
←  EasyHard  →
Heavenly is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, with a difficulty score of 73.3. This mountain ranks in the top 10% of most-difficult ski resorts in all of North America, mostly due to the fact that it has 30% of its trails rated as expert-level, and a vertical drop of 3,527 feet.
 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.
Green Circle
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.

Blue Square
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%.

Black Diamond
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.

NameCodeCityDistance
Reno–Tahoe International AirportRNOReno, NV40 mi
Sacramento International AirportSMFSacramento, CA90 mi
Oakland International AirportOAKOakland, CA149 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.

NameCodeCityDistance
Sacramento Mather AirportMHRSacramento, CA78 mi
Fresno Yosemite International AirportFATFresno, CA150 mi
Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County AirportSTSSanta Rosa, CA158 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.

NameLocationSummitDifficulty Score™Distance
Sierra-at-TahoeSouth Lake Tahoe, CA8,852 ft53%11 mi
HomewoodHomewood, CA7,880 ft58%16 mi
KirkwoodKirkwood, CA9,800 ft68%19 mi
Granlibakken TahoeTahoe City, CA6,350 ft15%19 mi
Palisades Tahoe - Alpine MeadowsAlpine Meadows, CA8,637 ft53%23 mi
Palisades Tahoe - Palisades MountainOlympic Valley, CA9,050 ft62%24 mi
Palisades TahoeOlympic Valley, CA9,050 ft62%24 mi
NorthstarTruckee, CA8,610 ft58%25 mi
Mount RoseReno, NV9,700 ft60%28 mi
Sugar BowlTruckee, CA8,383 ft53%30 mi
Tahoe DonnerTruckee, CA7,350 ft26%34 mi
Donner Ski RanchNorden, CA7,781 ft38%34 mi
BorealSoda Springs, CA7,700 ft30%35 mi
Soda SpringsSoda Springs, CA7,300 ft31%36 mi
Dodge RidgePinecrest, CA8,200 ft54%52 mi
June MountainJune Lake, CA10,090 ft68%93 mi

Heavenly Ski Resort Mountain Stats

NameStatistic
Summit Elevation10,067 ft
Base Elevation6,540 ft
Vertical Drop3,527 ft
Trails97
(8% Beginner,  62% Intermediate,  30% Expert)
Lifts28
Skiable Acres4,800
Avg. Annual Snowfall360 inches
Heavenly Ski Resort Mountain Stats
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