El Colorado
El Colorado is a ski area in Santiago, Chile, at about 2,757 m. The map shows 103 marked runs and 14 lifts (about 68 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 278 cm of snowfall a season, 579th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 9th in Chile. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2026 (512 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2019 (112 cm). Snowfall days average −2.9 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 3rd of 11 in Chile.
Elevation of the ski area’s centre point, taken from a digital elevation model. It is not the base-to-summit range.
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified.
Score breakdown
Powder Score v1.0.0
7-day outlook
| Date | Snow | Temp | Wind |
|---|---|---|---|
| ❄️ 7 Oct | 25.1 | -4.6 / -0.8 | 5.4 |
| ❄️ 8 Oct | 5 | -12.2 / -0.1 | 9.9 |
| ❄️ 9 Oct | 1 | -7.8 / -0.5 | 6.1 |
| 🌨️ 10 Oct | 3.2 | -8 / 2.5 | 7.3 |
| 🌨️ 11 Oct | 1.8 | -1.3 / 1.7 | 4.5 |
| ❄️ 12 Oct | 3.4 | -3.6 / -0.2 | 3.3 |
| ❄️ 13 Oct | 4.1 | -6.2 / -1.5 | 5.3 |
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Run map
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
Only 15% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Lift types
- T-bar10
- Chairlift4
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
The tick marks the median across every Japanese ski area we measure. All four bars run the same way — longer is better.
The quality score deliberately excludes how much snow falls — it uses temperature, frequency, rain and wind. Snowing a lot and snowing well are different things.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Parva | 1.9 km | 278 cm | 579 |
| Valle Nevado | 3.9 km | 278 cm | 579 |
| Lagunillas | 29 km | 328 cm | 363 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in June. September brings 88% of July’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in Chile (77%). In amount, September brings 49 cm, about the same as the median of 54 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 278 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2019 with 112 cm; the biggest was 2026 with 512 cm (4.6 times as much). For 55% of the 11 ski areas in Chile, the leanest winter was the same 2019: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
Snowfall each winter (June–September total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Map
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
More places to look
What we have measured at El Colorado
- Nevados de Chillán: South America's Snowiest Ski Area, and Why Its Snow Is Wet Nevados de Chillán gets 752 cm a season, 3rd of the 3,069 ski areas we measure and the most in South America by a distance. Its snow falls at an average of +0.3 °C, which is the catch, and its winters run from 188 cm to 1,121 cm.
- Skiing From Santiago: Ski Areas Within 40 km, and Almost No Rain Only three cities of three million or more have a 300 cm ski area within 120 km: Santiago, Seattle and Nagoya. Santiago's nearest is 38 km, about half Seattle's distance — and the fields beside it see rain on 3% of winter days against a Japanese median of 16%.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52