Vail Ski Resort is a ski area located in the state of Colorado in USA. The resort is in the town of Vail, CO. We recently ranked all of Colorado's ski resorts, so you can see where Vail stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Vail 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.
Vail Lodging:
Vail Ski Resort Terrain Overview
Vail has a total of 267 ski trails, which are serviced by 31 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 5,289 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 2,140 hectares, 8 square miles, or 21 square kilometers.
Vail's slopes see on average 366 inches (144 cm) of snowfall a year. That is almost 30 feet a year!
Total Runs
267
Lifts
31
Skiable Acres
5,289(21 km2)
Annual Snowfall
366"(144 cm)
Vail Ski Resort Elevation
Vail Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 11,570 feet, or 3,526 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 8,120 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 3,450 feet (1,052 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 11,570 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
11,570'(3,526 m)
Vertical Drop
3,450'(1,052 m)
Base Elevation
8,120'(2,475 m)
Vail Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
72.1out 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.
Skiiable Area by Difficulty Level
Vail has 5,289 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Seeing as Vail is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, it's no surprise that over 78% of its trails rated as either intermediate or expert-level. This leaves only 22% of its skiable acres for the beginners.
Beginner
22%(1,164 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
34%(1,798 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
44%(2,327 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 Vail 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. Vail Ski Resort ranks in the top 10% of the most-difficult ski resorts in the country. It has 44% of its trails rated as expert, or black-diamond level.
Vail Ski Resort Location
Vail Ski Resort is located in the state of Colorado, USA. This ski area is nearby the town of Vail, CO.
Address:
Vail, CO 81657 USA
View on Google Maps
Website:
vail.com/
GPS Coordinates:
39.64000, -106.36000
Getting to Vail Ski Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Vail Ski Resort), its coordinates of 39.64000, -106.36000 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Vail, 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 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 Vail Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denver International Airport | DEN | Denver, CO | 91 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 Vail.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eagle County Regional Airport | EGE | Eagle, CO | 30 mi |
| Aspen-Pitkin Co/Sardy Field | ASE | Aspen, CO | 40 mi |
| City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport | COS | Colorado Springs, CO | 106 mi |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Vail 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 Vail Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beaver Creek | Beaver Creek, CO | 11,440 ft | 62% | 9 mi |
| Copper Mountain | Frisco, CO | 12,313 ft | 66% | 16 mi |
| Ski Cooper | Leadville, CO | 11,700 ft | 42% | 20 mi |
| Breckenridge | Breckenridge, CO | 12,998 ft | 82% | 20 mi |
| Keystone | Dillon, CO | 12,408 ft | 69% | 22 mi |
| Ski Granby | Granby, CO | 9,202 ft | 30% | 36 mi |
| Winter Park | Winter Park, CO | 12,060 ft | 72% | 36 mi |
| Aspen Snowmass | Snowmass Village, CO | 12,510 ft | 86% | 44 mi |
| Eldora | Nederland, CO | 10,800 ft | 48% | 47 mi |
| Sunlight | Glenwood Springs, CO | 9,895 ft | 51% | 55 mi |
| Crested Butte | Crested Butte, CO | 12,162 ft | 74% | 63 mi |
| Monarch | Salida, CO | 11,952 ft | 51% | 76 mi |
| Buttermilk | Larkspur, CO | 9,900 ft | 47% | 82 mi |
| Arapahoe Basin | Aurora, CO | 13,050 ft | 76% | 84 mi |
| Steamboat | Clark, CO | 10,568 ft | 76% | 86 mi |
| Loveland | Loveland, CO | 13,010 ft | 63% | 86 mi |
Vail Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 11,570 ft |
| Base Elevation | 8,120 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 3,450 ft |
| Trails | 267 (22% Beginner, 34% Intermediate, 44% Expert) |
| Lifts | 31 |
| Skiable Acres | 5,289 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 366 inches |