Best Tree Skiing Resorts: Where to Ski the Woods

On a full-on storm day, when the wind is up and the alpine has gone to a flat grey nothing where you cannot tell a roll from a cliff, the smart skiers are in the trees. That is the whole case for tree skiing in one sentence: the woods give you back the two things a storm takes away, visibility and snow that stays soft. Everything below is about where to find good ones and how not to get hurt doing it.

Why the woods, and why on the worst days

Trees do three useful things. First, contrast. In a white-out on an open slope your eyes have nothing to lock onto, and you ski tense and slow because you genuinely cannot read the surface. Drop into a forest and every trunk and branch gives you depth and a sense of speed again -- the same weather that makes the bowl unskiable makes the glade the best run on the mountain.

Second, shelter. Wind is what wrecks powder, scouring it off exposed faces and packing it into crust. A well-spaced forest breaks the wind at ground level, so the snow inside falls soft and stays soft. A gladed run can still be ankle-deep and untracked a full day after the open slopes above it have been blown bare or skied off.

Third, they hold the snow longer in a different sense: trees shade it. North-facing glades in particular keep cold, dry powder for days after a storm while sunny open pitches have already gone heavy. When someone says a run "holds snow," a shaded tree run is usually what they mean.

The trade is that trees demand more of you. You are picking a line through fixed objects at speed, the snow is deep and grabby, and the consequences of a fall are worse -- which brings us to the safety section you should not skip. But first, where to go. North America is simply better at this than Europe, and it is not close, so we start there.

North America: the real home of tree skiing

The reason is geography. American and Canadian resorts sit lower and their treeline is higher, so a far greater share of the terrain is inside the forest rather than above it. The interior ranges -- Colorado, Montana, interior British Columbia -- also get colder, drier snow than the coast, and the forests are more open. You get spacing you can actually turn in.

Steamboat, Colorado -- the aspen benchmark

Steamboat is the one everyone names first, and it earns it. The mountain trademarked the phrase "Champagne Powder" and, unusually for a marketing line, mostly delivers -- the snow off the Continental Divide lands light and dry. What makes Steamboat special is not the depth but the trees themselves: the aspen glades on Mt. Werner are naturally spaced the way no conifer forest ever is, wide enough to link fast, rhythmic turns without the claustrophobia of tight timber. Runs like Shadows, Closets and Twilight are a rite of passage, and on a snowy morning they are the best argument in the state for skiing the woods. A recent multi-year redevelopment added the Wild Blue Gondola, now the longest in North America, and a large expert expansion, but the aspens were always the point. For where to actually point yourself when it dumps, our Colorado powder stashes guide goes deeper.

Fernie and Revelstoke, British Columbia -- steeper and deeper

Canada is where tree skiing gets serious. Fernie, in the Lizard Range of southeastern BC, sits under a storm track that buries it -- annual snowfall is measured in metres, not inches -- and its five alpine bowls are stitched together by steep, pillowy tree runs down their flanks. When the bowls are socked in, the trees between them are where the day happens. It is a proper skier's mountain with very little pretension attached.

Revelstoke is the heavyweight. It has the greatest lift-served vertical in North America, it is young (it only opened to the public in the 2000s), and it is relentlessly steep. The tree skiing here is not the gentle aspen-cruise of Steamboat -- it is long, sustained, gladed fall-line skiing that will tire your legs out and demands you actually know what you are doing. Both resorts sit on the way through the Canadian Rockies, and both reward a group that can ski hard and read a forest.

Whitefish, Big Sky and Winter Park -- the rest of the North American core

Whitefish in Montana is a cult favourite, and its calling card is the "snow ghosts" -- trees so caked in rime and snow they turn into frozen sculptures you weave between in the fog. Whitefish is often foggy, which is exactly why the tree skiing is so central to the place; you learn to ski by feel and contrast, and the mountain has terrain for it everywhere.

Big Sky, also in Montana, is enormous, and while it is famous for the Lone Peak steeps up high, the lower and mid-mountain is threaded with tree runs that are the sane choice when the tram is on wind hold. And back in Colorado, Winter Park has a genuinely underrated glade game: the Eagle Wind lift serves north-facing trees that hold snow for days after a storm, and the Vasquez terrain gives you gladed lines well away from the crowds funnelling onto Mary Jane's bumps.

Europe: real, but you have to know where to look

Say it plainly: Europe cannot match North America for tree skiing, and the reason is the treeline. So much of the classic Alpine terrain sits above the last trees that the marquee resorts -- your Zermatts and Val Thorens -- have almost no forest skiing at all. When the wind shuts the high lifts there, you are done for the day. The resorts worth knowing are the lower, greener ones, and they become genuinely valuable precisely on the days the big names fail.

Laax in Switzerland is the standout. The Flims-Laax-Falera area drops a long way down into forest, and while the resort is best known for its freestyle scene, the tree runs on the lower mountain are the real storm-day insurance in a country that mostly lacks them. It is one of the few big Swiss resorts where a white-out day up top does not have to be a write-off.

The Portes du Soleil, straddling the French-Swiss border, is the other European answer. It is relatively low and heavily forested, which costs it snow reliability in a warm winter but pays off in tree cover. Les Gets and its neighbour Morzine sit among the best of it -- gentle, tree-lined terrain that is a joy in bad light and forgiving enough for intermediates to try their first glades. Nearby Avoriaz is higher and more exposed, so on a wind day you drop down into the Les Gets and Morzine woods.

Then Serre Chevalier in the Southern French Alps, which has the most distinctive tree skiing in the country: larch forests. Larch is a deciduous conifer that drops its needles, so the woods are unusually open and airy, and the runs above Chantemerle and Villeneuve wind through them beautifully. Serre Che is sunnier and drier than the Northern Alps, which suits the trees. It sits alongside the other under-the-radar spots in our hidden gems of the French Alps guide.

The Dolomites deserve a mention and an honest caveat. The scenery is unmatched and there are tree-lined pistes everywhere, but genuine off-piste glade skiing is more limited than the postcards suggest -- much of the forest terrain is inside boundaries or simply not the point of a trip there. Go for the beauty and the pistes; do not go expecting Revelstoke in the woods.

Safety: this is the part that can kill you

Tree skiing is the only skiing in this guide with a specific, named way to die that has nothing to do with avalanches, and every skier heading into the woods needs to understand it.

Around the trunk of a conifer, the branches hold the falling snow off the ground and leave a hidden void of loose, bottomless powder -- a tree well. Fall into one, especially head-first, and you can end up trapped upside down in deep snow that packs tighter the more you struggle, unable to move your arms or clear an airway. This is snow immersion suffocation, and it is not a freak event: in controlled tests, the large majority of volunteers who were placed in a tree well could not get themselves out unaided. The people who die from it are frequently strong, experienced skiers.

The single rule that prevents almost all of it: never ski trees alone, and keep your partner in sight. Not "somewhere on the mountain" -- in sight, close enough that if one of you vanishes the other sees where. A tree well victim who is found in minutes lives; one who is found in an hour usually does not, and someone skiing forty metres back who never saw you go in will not find you. Ski the trees one at a time, watching each other, calling out. It feels over-cautious right up until the day it isn't.

A few more habits. Carry the standard backcountry kit and a phone or radio where the trees are steep and the snow is deep. If you do go in, resist the instinct to thrash -- it packs the snow -- and try to keep an arm up to protect an air space. Loop your pole straps off your wrists in deep trees so a pole cannot pin an arm. And match the terrain to your group: a tight, steep, deep forest is not the place to take someone on their third day.

Etiquette in the trees

The woods have their own manners. A tree run holds its powder because people space out and take fresh lines, so do not poach the line your mate is clearly setting up for. Give the skier ahead of you room -- you cannot see far in trees, and closing the gap means you arrive at their fall before you can stop. Keep your calls short and audible so the group stays together. And on a powder morning, the unwritten rule is one line at a time: the forest gives everyone a fresh track if nobody hogs it.

Where to stay

Steamboat is the easiest base to build a tree-skiing trip around, because the good glades are spread across the whole face of Mt. Werner and you want to be able to lap them all day. Stay at the mountain base near the gondola if you want to be first into the aspens on a powder morning, or down in the old ranching town of Steamboat Springs -- a real place with a main street, not a purpose-built plaza -- if you would rather have the character and take the free bus up. Either way, budget a night to adjust: the base sits high, and altitude is real.

Picking one

If you want the platonic aspen glade and light, dry snow, go to Steamboat. If you want steeper, deeper and more serious, cross into British Columbia for Fernie or Revelstoke and bring your fitness. If you are Alps-bound and want insurance against a white-out day up high, Laax is the one big resort that gives it to you. Compare the four side by side here:

Wherever you land, the rule that matters most is not about the resort. Ski the trees with a partner, keep them in sight, and the woods will give you the best days of your season.