Sugar Bowl
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort is a ski area located in the state of California in USA. The resort is in the town of Truckee, CA.
We recently ranked all of California's ski resorts, so you can see where Sugar Bowl stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Season Passes
Sugar Bowl is a part of the Mountain Collective network. This allows you to buy one lift pass, and ski at all of the slopes that are also a part of the Collective.
Lodging Options
There are numerous options to stay at Sugar Bowl around the resort. Check out the available options with the form below.
Sugar Bowl Mountain Resort Terrain Overview
Sugar Bowl has a total of 103 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 1,650 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 668 hectares, 2.6 square miles, or 6.7 square kilometers.
Sugar Bowl's slopes see on average 456 inches (11.6 meters) of snowfall a year. That is almost 38 feet every year!
Total Runs
103
Lifts
13
Skiable Acres
1,650(7 km2)
Annual Snowfall
456"(1,158 cm)
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort Elevation
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 8,383 feet, or 2,555 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 6,883 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 1,500 feet (457 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 8,383 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
8,383'(2,555 m)
Vertical Drop
1,500'(457 m)
Base Elevation
6,883'(2,098 m)
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
53.1out 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
Sugar Bowl has 1,650 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Sugar Bowl is a beginner-friendly ski area, with about 17% of its trails as easy. However, it also has a fair share of more difficult runs - which account for the remaining 83%.
Beginner
17%(281 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
45%(743 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
38%(627 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 Sugar Bowl Ski Resort good for beginners?
Sugar Bowl can be beginner-friendly, depending on the runs you take. While it ranks in the lower half of all North American ski areas in terms of overall difficulty, it still has 83% of its trails rated at or above intermediate.
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort Location
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort is located in the state of California, USA. This ski area is nearest the town of Truckee, CA.
Address:
Truckee, CA 96161 USA
View on Google Maps
Website:
sugarbowl.com
GPS Coordinates:
39.27000, -120.30000
Getting to Sugar Bowl Mountain Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Sugar Bowl Ski Resort), its coordinates of 39.27000, -120.30000 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Truckee, 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 Sugar Bowl Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reno–Tahoe International Airport | RNO | Reno, NV | 33 mi |
| Sacramento International Airport | SMF | Sacramento, CA | 80 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 Sugar Bowl.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sacramento Mather Airport | MHR | Sacramento, CA | 73 mi |
| Redding Municipal Airport | RDD | Redding, CA | 136 mi |
| Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport | STS | Santa Rosa, CA | 145 mi |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Sugar Bowl 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 Sugar Bowl Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donner Ski Ranch | Norden, CA | 7,781 ft | 38% | 3 mi |
| Boreal | Soda Springs, CA | 7,700 ft | 30% | 5 mi |
| Soda Springs | Soda Springs, CA | 7,300 ft | 31% | 6 mi |
| Tahoe Donner | Truckee, CA | 7,350 ft | 26% | 6 mi |
| Palisades Tahoe - Palisades Mountain | Olympic Valley, CA | 9,050 ft | 62% | 7 mi |
| Palisades Tahoe | Olympic Valley, CA | 9,050 ft | 62% | 7 mi |
| Palisades Tahoe - Alpine Meadows | Alpine Meadows, CA | 8,637 ft | 53% | 8 mi |
| Northstar | Truckee, CA | 8,610 ft | 58% | 10 mi |
| Granlibakken Tahoe | Tahoe City, CA | 6,350 ft | 15% | 11 mi |
| Homewood | Homewood, CA | 7,880 ft | 58% | 15 mi |
| Mount Rose | Reno, NV | 9,700 ft | 60% | 21 mi |
| Heavenly | South Lake Tahoe, CA | 10,067 ft | 73% | 30 mi |
| Sierra-at-Tahoe | South Lake Tahoe, CA | 8,852 ft | 53% | 34 mi |
| Kirkwood | Kirkwood, CA | 9,800 ft | 68% | 42 mi |
| Dodge Ridge | Pinecrest, CA | 8,200 ft | 54% | 78 mi |
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 8,383 ft |
| Base Elevation | 6,883 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 1,500 ft |
| Trails | 103 (17% Beginner, 45% Intermediate, 38% Expert) |
| Lifts | 13 |
| Skiable Acres | 1,650 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 456 inches |