SkiStec is a comparison tool for ski resorts in Europe and North America. Instead of opening a dozen sites to check which resort has longer runs or lies closer to you, you compare them side by side here.
Most ski websites are catalogues — you browse one resort at a time. We focus on comparison: the question we answer is not "what is this resort like" but "which of these three should I pick". That is also why we distinguish something you rarely find elsewhere: whether a resort stands alone, is physically lift-linked to its neighbours, or merely shares a ski pass with them.
We collect data by hand from resort websites and public sources, then verify it. Resorts whose piste difficulty breakdown has been checked carry a green note with the verification date. Where it is missing, figures are indicative and we say so plainly. We do not pretend to know more than we do — if data is missing, we write "no data" rather than inventing a number. Always check the resort's official site for current conditions before you travel.
This distinction changes the whole character of a trip. In a lift-linked area (such as Les 3 Vallées or Portes du Soleil) you ski between the parts of the domain — you start in one valley in the morning, reach another by afternoon and ski back, never touching your car. In a shared-pass region (such as Ski Amadé or Dolomiti Superski) one pass covers many separate areas, but you have to drive or take a bus between them, sometimes for an hour. If you want to park the car for a week, filter by "lift-linked".
Largely yes, but the summit is not the whole story. A resort topping out at 3000 m with a base at 800 m will have excellent snow up high and slush at the bottom — and the bottom is where you finish the day. That is why base altitude is worth checking alongside summit altitude, and why you can filter by it. Slope aspect and the presence of a glacier matter too. In December and late season, the gap between a resort based at 1800 m and one at 700 m can be decisive.
The tilde marks an estimate. Road distances come from a routing service that calculates an actual drive. When that service is unavailable, we fall back to a calculation based on straight-line distance adjusted for winding mountain roads — and mark it with a tilde so you know it is not exact.
Fewer than the marketing numbers suggest. Over a week, an average skier covers somewhere between fifteen and twenty kilometres of piste per day, not hundreds. A resort with 100 km will fill a week without repeating the same runs. Large domains make sense if you ski fast and far, like exploring, or dislike crowds. For a family, whether the runs funnel back to one place often matters more than how many there are.
January offers the best balance of snow, price and crowds — cold and quiet right after New Year. February brings the most reliable conditions but also half of Europe's school holidays, peak prices and queues. March and early April mean long days, sunshine and soft afternoon snow, though altitude starts to matter a great deal. December is a gamble unless you go high or to a glacier.
It is the difference between the highest and lowest point of a resort — how many metres you descend without taking a lift. A big vertical means long, continuous runs, which is usually more enjoyable than a series of short sections broken up by queues. A resort with 1500 m of vertical offers descents lasting a quarter of an hour or more. For learning, vertical matters less than whether there are gentle, wide slopes at the bottom.
They are two different systems and confusing them can catch you out. In Europe the scale runs blue (easy), red (intermediate), black (difficult), with green added for beginners in France, Andorra and Spain. North America has no red at all — it uses green circle, blue square, black diamond and double black diamond for expert terrain. More importantly, ratings are relative to each resort: a black diamond at a gentle Vermont hill can be easier than a red run in the Alps, while a double black at Jackson Hole is often terrain that would carry no marking in Europe at all. For North American resorts we show the original category names so as not to imply a comparability that does not exist.
Resort statistics — piste length, altitude, lift counts — change rarely, usually when a new lift is built. We verify them in stages and mark the date. Weather is fetched live. We do not publish current snow depth or lift status — that is data resorts publish themselves and it needs checking at the source on the day.
The site is free and requires no account. We collect no personal data, run no newsletter and use no tools that track user behaviour. Details are in our privacy policy.
Found an error, or is your favourite resort missing? Get in touch — we apply corrections as they come, and reports from skiers who know the terrain are the most valuable source of fixes. skistec.kontakt@gmail.com