The number of snow ski areas and resorts in the United States peaked in the late 1960s at around 1000 areas. Since then many small, rope-tow only areas have closed or consolidated. The following listing accounts for US ski areas that are currently operational. It is restricted to ski liftâÂÂserved alpine skiing areas, both public and private.
According to the National Ski Areas Association, 37 U.S. states have operating ski areas with a total 486 nationwide .
The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast news blog lists 503 separate, non-private, lift-served, "active ski areas" as of October 16, 2003. Of the 503 that are on Storm Skiing's list 102 have only surface lifts; 401 have one or more chairlifts; and 45 are private or semi-private, where there is some membership, enrollment, residency, or lodging requirement. Of the 503 ski areas, 390 are "public U.S. ski areas that run chairlifts" and "113 either run only surface lifts, or are not open to the general public", says to Storm Skiing. Of the 390 public, chairlift areas, 233 or 60% have joined one or more United StatesâÂÂbased, international multi-mountain ski pass, according to Storm Skiing.