When it comes to skiing and snowboarding in the Southern Hemisphere, you probably think of Chile, Argentina, or New Zealand. Maybe you even think of Antarctica. Australia isn’t typically on the top of people’s list, and there’s good reasons for that. Australia is an incredible country, but its mountains don’t typically to have the most reliable snow coverage. Even when there is snow, it’s usually fairly sparse and low in quality.
With the less-than-solid snow coverage and limited worldwide popularity, you might think Australia lacks large resorts. But in that sense, you’d be dead wrong. PeakRankings took a look at Australia’s biggest resorts, comparing them to the ski areas of North America.
Australia’s Perisher Resort
Perisher Resort is one of Australia’s most well known ski resorts. The current winter season has brought the mountain to a natural depth of around 89 inches, or just under 7 feet. The resort is packed full of trails, with 44 lifts taking skiers and snowboarders up and around the multiple peaks, so it isn’t entirely surprising to learn that Perisher has 3,076 acres, or 1,245 hectares, of skiable terrain.
To be very clear, that’s larger than any ski resort in the East of North America. The largest New England ski resort is Killington in Vermont, which boasts 1,977 skiable acres between both Killington and Pico Mountain. It doesn’t come very close in size to the largest ski resorts in North America, but it is bigger than Alta Ski Area (2,614 acres), Copper Mountain (2,538 acres), Jackson Hole (2,500 acres), and many other well known North American resorts.
There are plenty of other factors that might surprise you about skiing in Australia, from the type of trees you’ll see on the mountain to the wildlife you might find on the mountain. For a full look at surprising factors about skiing in Australia, check out PeakRankings full video here.
