Early season skiing tends to be a somewhat unpleasant experience. With just a few lifts open, you’re often forced to wait in very long lift lines to get up the mountain, but that’s not even the worst part. With only a handful of ski trails available, you’re often dodging other skiers, both slower and faster than you, the entire time, and it can be seriously stressful.
Once the season is really going, people tend to spread out more and you can usually find plenty of non-congested ski trails, but there’s usually still a few at every resort that stay congested through the entire season. PeakRankings explored exactly why some of those trails wind up so packed.
As they explain in the video, there’s a few reasons a trail might stay congested throughout the season. Part of the might be poor planning, with a lift leading to just one trail or one trail connecting major parts of the mountain. The other frequent reason is that some mountains only have a few ski trails of specific difficulty or a really popular beginner run, leading to hundreds of skiers and snowboarders on the route all at once.
