Field Notes · Resorts
The biggest vertical drops in North America
Ranked by verified lift-served vertical drop — the actual elevation difference between a resort's highest lift-accessed point and its base, not trail length or total terrain.
By Louis, PeakSeeker · Sep 9, 2026
Vertical drop is the number serious skiers actually care about, and it's the one most likely to get rounded, guessed, or copied from an old brochure. Every figure below is the same verified vertical-drop stat sitting on that resort's own PeakSeeker page — pulled from the resort's own published stats, not a rounded-off approximation.
| # | Resort | Vertical drop | Lifts | Runs | Pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Revelstoke Mountain Resort British Columbia, Canada | 5,620 ft · 1,713 m | 5 | 75 | Ikon Pass |
| 2 | Whistler Blackcomb British Columbia, Canada | 5,133 ft · 1,565 m | 34 | 241 | Epic Pass |
| 3 | Timberline Lodge Ski Area Oregon, USA | 4,540 ft · 1,384 m | 9 | 43 | Independent (Powder Alliance) |
| 4 | Aspen Snowmass Colorado, USA | 4,406 ft · 1,343 m | 38 | 332 | Ikon Pass |
| 5 | Crystal Mountain Resort Washington, USA | 4,400 ft · 1,341 m | 11 | 85 | Ikon Pass |
| 6 | Big Sky Resort Montana, USA | 4,350 ft · 1,326 m | 40 | 320 | Ikon Pass |
| 7 | Kicking Horse Mountain Resort British Columbia, Canada | 4,314 ft · 1,315 m | 4 | 137 | Epic Pass |
| 8 | Panorama Mountain Resort British Columbia, Canada | 4,265 ft · 1,300 m | 10 | 135 | Ikon Pass |
| 9 | Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Wyoming, USA | 4,139 ft · 1,262 m | 13 | 116 | Ikon Pass |
| 10 | Telluride Ski Resort Colorado, USA | 3,845 ft · 1,172 m | 17 | 148 | Epic Pass |
| 11 | Steamboat Ski Resort Colorado, USA | 3,668 ft · 1,118 m | 23 | 184 | Ikon Pass |
| 12 | Fernie Alpine Resort British Columbia, Canada | 3,550 ft · 1,082 m | 10 | 145 | Epic Pass |
Why lift count and vertical drop don't track together
The list above isn't sorted by lift count, and it shows: Kicking Horse holds 7th place on 4,314ft of drop served by just 4 lifts, while Aspen Snowmass needs 38 lifts to serve slightly less vertical (4,406ft) spread across far more terrain. A resort built around one long gondola or tram run straight up a single big mountain (Revelstoke's 5,620ft on 5 lifts, Kicking Horse's 4,314ft on 4) can post a huge vertical number with a small lift fleet; a resort built around a wide interconnected terrain network (Big Sky, Aspen Snowmass) needs many more lifts to cover similar or greater vertical spread across a much bigger footprint. Neither approach is "better" — they're different mountains solving different problems.
Six of the twelve are in British Columbia and Alberta — Revelstoke, Whistler Blackcomb, Kicking Horse, Panorama, and Fernie among them — which tracks with how the Columbia Mountains and Canadian Rockies are built: fewer, taller individual massifs rather than the more spread-out ranges common through Colorado and the Pacific Northwest.
More Field Notes: The 14 Eight-Thousanders · The biggest ski areas on Earth · Jackson Hole, by the numbers · The highest (and lowest) ski resorts on Earth · All Field Notes