Timberline Lodge

North America’s only four-season outdoor ski resort provides a one-of-a-kind summer experience but fails to stand out during the core winter season.

Mount Hood Meadows

Mount Hood’s largest ski resort boasts diverse terrain and a reasonably large footprint. High-alpine areas are subject to extremely variable opening

Mount Bachelor

Inconsistent openings for its most unique terrain seriously hurt this massive Oregon resort’s practicality as a destination ski area.

Diamond Peak

This Tahoe mountain will impress many visitors with breathtaking lake views, but its terrain and amenities are no match for the area’s better-known destination resorts.

Sugar Bowl

This California resort can’t match the acreage and vertical drop of competing Tahoe mountains, but it stands out with trails for all ability levels and an extremely demanding expert footprint.

Mount Rose

Despite its high elevation, a number of shortcomings detract from this Nevada mountain’s appeal as a destination resort.