Pioneer Mountain Resort
Pioneer Mountain Resort is a ski area in United States, on slopes between roughly 2,545 and 2,545 m. Its mapped area is about 10 km across, with 99 marked runs and 17 lifts (about 104 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 145 cm of snowfall a season, 1,729th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 222nd in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (186 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (93 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (39 and 29 cm on average).
Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.
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 | 0 | 5.1 / 17.2 | 20.5 |
| ☁️ 8 Oct | 0 | 5.9 / 16.4 | 23.4 |
| ☁️ 9 Oct | 0 | 6 / 17.5 | 33.6 |
| ❄️ 10 Oct | 0.5 | -0.9 / 12.4 | 25.3 |
| ❄️ 11 Oct | 3.5 | -3.7 / -2 | 4.7 |
| 🌨️ 12 Oct | 2.8 | -5.2 / 2.8 | 9 |
| 🌤️ 13 Oct | 0 | -4.2 / 6.2 | 14.8 |
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.
The figures are for the whole of “Yellowstone Club”, which the map draws as one ski area.
Run map
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
73% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Chairlift12
- Gondola3
- Funicular1
- Magic carpet1
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Sky Resort | 5.7 km | 170 cm | 1416 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in December. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 39 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 145 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 93 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 186 cm (2.0 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States, the leanest winter was the same 2014/15: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
Snowfall each winter (December–March 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
Guides covering United States
- Which Famous Ski Resorts Actually Get the Most Snow? 24 Names, Measured Niseko is 526th in the world for snowfall. Zermatt is 554th, Jackson Hole 924th, Aspen 1,201st. Measured identically across 3,069 ski areas, the names everyone books and the places it actually snows turn out to be two different lists.
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. Across 2,888 ski areas: 39% of American runs are graded advanced or harder, and 9% of Austrian ones. Nobody thinks Austria is four times gentler. The grades are measuring different things.
- Niseko vs Whistler: Whistler Is the Outlier, Vail Is the Rule Whistler is the world's 29th snowiest ski area. Vail is 1,335th — and 288 Japanese ski areas get more snow than the resort that defines American skiing.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52