Narty USA

There are over 500 ski centres in the USA in more than 40 of the country’s states, rivalling Austria and Japan for numbers, and the USA has the second largest number of chair lifts in the world (surpassed only by Japan).

The best known resorts are either on the East or West Coasts, with a few large centres offering small verticals in the Midwest. Many warm states, such as Tennessee, also have a resort and even Hawaii has skiing facilities.

Ski resorts in North America tend to be private enterprises and many of today's greatest resorts have been built over decades from nothing to multi-million dollar businesses. Some, like Stowe or Sun Valley, have been famous for almost as long as skiing has been a recreational sport, while others like Sunday River, The Canyons or Deer Valley, have shot to fame within the past decade or so.

The East Coast resorts are generally at low altitudes with most of their runs floodlit for night skiing. They are often covered by snowmaking equipment, which, as technology improves, creates snow at increasingly warmer temperatures during seasons which reach back to early October and, in some centres, extend to June.

On the West coast, the mountains are high and some ski centres are becoming increasingly affluent, growing like fantasy lands on desolate mountain landscapes. The skiing and facilities available at resorts like Aspen are truly staggering. Most remarkable of all are the huge falls of light, dry powder snow which fall annually, almost without fail.

The emphasis in virtually all North American ski centres is on quality and service, regardless of their individual distinguishing features. This attitude predominates in all aspects of skiing-friendly and attentive staff, comfortable and fast lifts ascending from points to which you can ski (rather than have to climb an incline to reach) and leading to runs which have been immaculately groomed so that you don't have to worry about hitting any obstacle.

Off the slopes, restaurants with delivery service proliferate, accommodations at all levels are of a high standard and the range of après-ski options can be huge. The fact that in terms of the complete ski holiday, North American resorts can offer skiers more than any other resorts in the world has not been lost on the marketing teams, and the top resorts now actively court skiers world-wide. After all, if people will drive for hours across States to get to the slopes, what's a 6-8 hour flight from another continent?

North American resorts tend to measure skiing in terms of area rather than length, a European preference, and the grading system works slightly differently, although on a similar colour coding principal. Pistes are ‘trails’, trails are named not numbered and machines 'groom' trails rather than 'bash' pistes. Insurance is absolutely paramount in the USA, but ,surprisingly, chair lifts rarely have safety bars, leaving Europeans clinging nervously to the sides. There is also something of an obsession with the 'vertical drop' - perhaps because this figure is common from the East to the West coast, regardless of the actual height of the mountain.