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Every spring, as the season winds to a close across North America’s ski resorts, SKI sends out its annual Reader Resort Survey. We use the results of these reader-generated rankings to determine the Top 50 Resorts in North America each fall. Now that the 2025 survey is live, let’s clear up some misconceptions about how our Top 50 rankings are calculated.
Refresh Your Memory: These Are the Top 30 Resorts in the West and the Top 20 Resorts in the East
During the survey process, respondents are asked to rate a resort on 17 criteria, from core ski metrics such as Snow, Grooming, and Challenge, to the lighter resort amenities such as Après, Lodging, and Nightlife. For the overall Top 50 lists in the West and the East, we weigh some core categories to align better with what’s most important to our readers: the true ski experience.
To keep things fair—so that tiny Mt. Mom-n-Pop in lower Podunkville, which received four survey responses with top rankings across the board, doesn’t take top honors—we have a minimum number of survey responses required for a resort to make the cut. We also have safeguards in place within our survey software that weed out duplicate responses both by email and IP address, so “stuffing the box” is close to impossible.
Now for the Misconceptions:
- No matter how many times we say it, write it, promote it, or publish it, people think that we, SKI’s editors, are deciding the results. This is 100 percent a readers’ survey, the editors have no say in the results.
- No money or exchange of advertising is involved in the process. Absolutely none. We host the survey, and you, the readers, decide the Top 50.
- One more time for the folks in the back: Resorts cannot buy their way into the rankings, and how much they advertise on the website if at all, has no impact on the results.
Like any survey, not everyone is going to be pleased with the results. We’re not always pleased, either, and sometimes we’re downright befuddled. (Stowe No. 17 in the East? Whistler Blackcomb No. 21 in the West?) But it’s the voice of our readers, and we respect it. The way we see it, the editorial staff dictates 95 percent of the content across our platforms every season, so letting the reader survey stand is a balance of power.
Finally, we’ve been asked why we don’t include European resorts in the rankings. We’d love to, but we don’t feel like we have critical mass when it comes to Americans visiting the Alps to generate an accurate list. The same goes for the Midwest resorts. Midwest skiers: Vote for your resorts in the survey, and we’ll be sure to include them if we get enough replies.
Think the ranking is a joke? Want to move the needle? Take the survey. It’s free, and you can even enter to win a pair of Bode Miller designed Peak Skis at the end. Got feedback? Hit us up at editor@skimag.com. We’re always open to changing things up and improving the process.