Telluride Ski Resort is a ski area located in the state of Colorado in USA. The resort is in the town of Telluride, CO. We recently ranked all of Colorado's ski resorts, so you can see where Telluride stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Telluride is a part of the Epic Ski Pass network. This allows you to buy one lift pass, and ski at most of the Vail owned slopes with it throughout the year. There are a handful of different types of Epic passes available, ranging from 3-7 days, to season-long.
Telluride Lodging:
Telluride Ski Resort Terrain Overview
Telluride has a total of 118 ski trails, which are serviced by 18 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 2,000 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 809 hectares, 3 square miles, or 8 square kilometers.
Telluride's slopes see on average 256 inches (101 cm) of snowfall a year. That is almost 21 feet a year!
Total Runs
118
Lifts
18
Skiable Acres
2,000(8 km2)
Annual Snowfall
256"(101 cm)
Telluride Ski Resort Elevation
Telluride Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 13,320 feet, or 4,060 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 8,750 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 4,570 feet (1,393 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 13,320 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
13,320'(4,060 m)
Vertical Drop
4,570'(1,393 m)
Base Elevation
8,750'(2,667 m)
Telluride Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
89out 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
Telluride has 2,000 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Seeing as Telluride is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, it's no surprise that over 84% of its trails rated as either intermediate or expert-level. This leaves only 16% of its skiable acres for the beginners.
Beginner
16%(320 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
30%(600 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
54%(1,080 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 Telluride 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. Telluride Ski Resort ranks in the top 10% of the most-difficult ski resorts in the country. It has 54% of its trails rated as expert, or black-diamond level.
Telluride Ski Resort Location
Telluride Ski Resort is located in the state of Colorado, USA. This ski area is nearby the town of Telluride, CO.
Address:
Telluride, CO 81435 USA
View on Google Maps
Website:
tellurideskiresort.com/
GPS Coordinates:
37.94000, -107.82000
Getting to Telluride Ski Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Telluride Ski Resort), its coordinates of 37.94000, -107.82000 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Telluride, CO 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 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 Telluride.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Junction Regional Airport | GJT | Grand Junction, CO | 90 mi |
| Aspen-Pitkin Co/Sardy Field | ASE | Aspen, CO | 102 mi |
| San Luis Valley Regional Airport/Bergman Field | ALS | Alamosa, CO | 112 mi |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Telluride 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 Telluride Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silverton | Silverton, CO | 13,847 ft | 100% | 12 mi |
| Purgatory | Durango, CO | 10,822 ft | 51% | 34 mi |
| Powderhorn | Powderhorn, CO | 9,850 ft | 58% | 46 mi |
| Wolf Creek | Pagosa Springs, CO | 11,904 ft | 50% | 65 mi |
| Crested Butte | Crested Butte, CO | 12,162 ft | 74% | 78 mi |
| Monarch | Salida, CO | 11,952 ft | 51% | 91 mi |
| Aspen Snowmass | Snowmass Village, CO | 12,510 ft | 86% | 98 mi |
Telluride Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 13,320 ft |
| Base Elevation | 8,750 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 4,570 ft |
| Trails | 118 (16% Beginner, 30% Intermediate, 54% Expert) |
| Lifts | 18 |
| Skiable Acres | 2,000 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 256 inches |