Every resort brochure promises 600 km of fresh corduroy. Snowlist uses only data you can check yourself.

The Snowlist score

Seven sub-scores from 0 to 10:

• Snow (25%): average snowfall over the last three winters at mid-mountain from ERA5 reanalysis (via Open-Meteo), plus summit altitude, minus a penalty for warm bases.
• Terrain (25%): kilometres of downhill piste measured on OpenStreetMap (not advertised) and vertical drop.
• Lifts (10%): share of gondolas, cable cars and 4+ seat chairs versus drag lifts.
• Queues (15%): the queue model's average wait over the season (mid-month Tuesdays and Saturdays at 11:00, holidays included where they fall).
• Value (10%): snow + terrain + lifts per euro of day pass, ranked.
• Après (5%): bars, pubs and clubs mapped in the village.
• Access (10%): transfer time from the nearest airport.

The weighted total is then spread on a bell curve with the median at 6.5. Most resorts are decent, so a 9 is hard to get. On booking sites everything sits between 4.5 and 5 stars.

Lift queues

No resort publishes queue times for all its lifts, so Snowlist predicts them: crowd level × calendar (weekends, French school zones, UK half-term, Presidents' Day, Lunar New Year, Easter, early/late season) × time of day (base lifts peak at opening, upper lifts late morning) × lift capacity from OpenStreetMap × live weather (powder days, wind holds, low visibility). Skiers on the hill can tap the wait they see. Those reports override the model for 45 minutes and are marked LIVE.

Hotels

Every hotel, chalet, apartment, guesthouse and hostel mapped on OpenStreetMap near the village, scored by how far you walk in ski boots. Ski-in/ski-out = a piste within 70 m and a lift within 600 m. The Book button is a plain Booking.com search with no affiliate tag.

Reviews

Invite-only: each member gets 3 invites. Reviews are sorted by votes and shown with how many hops the reviewer is from you in the invite tree, because you trust a friend of a friend more than a stranger. Writing a review earns 2 karma, each upvote 1, each queue report 1 (max 10 a day).

Caveats

Prices are approximate walk-up adult day passes for 2025/26 and pass partnerships (Epic, Ikon) change every year. Season dates are typical, not this year's official ones. OpenStreetMap coverage varies: if a number looks off, fix the map and it will show up here at the next rebuild.