Beginner to Extreme: Ski Resort Terrain Levels Explained

Across the hundreds of ski resorts across North America, and many other regions around the world—you’ll see the same three symbols: a green circle, a blue square, and a black diamond. So how did these symbols come to be in the first place?

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0:00 Intro
0:48 Rating System Origins
2:05 Green Circle - Beginner Terrain
3:57 Blue Square - Intermediate Terrain
5:47 Black Diamond - Advanced Terrain
8:08 Double Black Diamond - Expert Terrain
9:25 EX/Triple Black Diamond - Extreme Terrain
12:26 Orange Oval - Freestyle Terrain
13:31 Final Thoughts

Thanks to @skitnb for the Lone Peak footage at Big Sky in this video!

[PeakRankings]

Hey all, a quick correction on this video: around 1:48, we mentioned that the green/blue/black rating system has become a "widely recognized standard worldwide." We should have clarified that "worldwide" does not refer to every region, and that several areas in Europe, South America, and Asia abide by different standards.

This system is really used in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—and to a certain extent in Scandinavia, with greens and blues being easier than in other countries.

Thanks for watching!

[texan_ocho]

Who else can’t wait for ski season to start???

These are actually not the same worldwide.

In most of Europe Blue (no specific shapes used) means about the same as Green Circle in America, Red corresponds to Blue Square (not just to Double Blue Square) while Black is similar to Black Diamond (but typically groomed.)

A few European countries use Green for very easy. Some use Orange or Yellow for expert or off-piste (ungroomed) itineraries, corresponding to Double Black Diamond terrain.

[CoreyGary]

Here are some tips I gathered from skiing out West for a few years. If you typically ski alone and want to venture into double black/extreme terrain, wait at the Avy Gate for other people to ski in first. Don’t flag people down, but if someone else stops politely ask if you can ski with them on the particular run. Nine out of ten times people will be kind and receptive. More eyes on the variable terrain the better for everyone as long as you keep a safe distance from others. Plus, it’s often easier to execute a line if you see someone else do it first.

Always know how to self rescue and self arrest. Go into avy gates with a charged phone or walkie talkie. Know where to stop above and to the side of a fall line. Make sure your boots are tight. Take your time. Don’t speed run if you aren’t confident in where you’re going, even if you’re a good skier. Traversing often makes skiing down extreme terrain easier, but don’t get cliffed out. Practice your kick turns on easier runs. Stay clear of tree wells. If you found a powder stache, that’s great. Make sure you know how to get back to the defined tracks because a powder Stache can appear before cliffs.

Make sure your skis are the proper width and underfoot for extreme terrain (rentals might not cut it depending on the mountain). Use powder baskets on polls. Wear a helmet. If nothing I said here made sense, google is your friend and maybe find a ski instructor for your first time!

[markdisanzo]

Also remember that the green/blue/black designations vary from hill to hill and are relative to that hill only. A black diamond in the east will likely be very different than a black at the western slopes.

[Wynton]

2:57 I was thinking “that tree looks familiar 🤔” then I realized it was the same one i almost hit learning how to snowboard at Tahoe 😂

[sampitrone]

Content is evolving and I’m all for it, keep it guys I absolutely love the videos!

[mrmuffins]

This is a super detailed guide, and I wish more resorts used a more detailed rating system like what you’ve described instead of just a simple 3 symbol system. That’s why I love Telluride in Colorado because they use
- single green
- double green
- single blue
- double blue
- single black
- double black
- extreme double black
so you have a very clear and gradual progression

[mikekelly]

Wow, that Disney connection to the trail ratings is really interesting... Ive skied my whole life and never once asked myself where the system came from. Thanks for including that!

[augustinbelliard]

I grew up skiing in the Alps and after moving to the USA and skiing there a bit, I've found that I still prefer the European designation of trails. The green slopes there are your bunny hills/easier greens, the blues there are trails that are steeper than greens but are still groomed and don't have bumps. Reds are trails that are steeper than blues but still groomed with the introductions of some bumps; this is what I find blues to be like at least on the east coast. Then blacks are ungroomed, steeper terrain which is equivalent to black diamonds here and then there are expert blacks which are your double blacks and above.

In addition, I've found that resorts in the Alps at least all have trail markers along the way with the color or grade of the run and number markers every so often. This helps a lot not get lost when conditions are bad and I think I've only seen something similar once at Hunter mountain (which you featured earlier in the video =) ). I wish more resorts did that.

[teacherguy]

Rather than "beginner, intermediate, advanced, " the colored symbols are often described as denoting "easier", "more difficult", "most difficult". This helps make clear that they are explanatory of RELATIVE difficulty among various runs for that particular resort and do not provide information related to other resorts. My daughter, raised skiing and riding Washington State, with some experience at resorts in Canadian and Oregon, found herself at a small resort in upstate New York during grad school and came away with the observation that a black run there was the same steepness as a steep green in the Pacific NW.

[Nobody-dcdp]

I remember once my novice friends decided to try a black diamond trail that was like 6 feet wide and was almost straight down. We tried it on our snowboards and we ended up sliding on our butts the whole way down and that was when I decided the mellow runs are actually way more fun and chill, plus less chance for hurting yourself.

[robynsutherland]

An under-rated trail sign in Canada is "easiest way down", which can frequently use green or perhaps skip green when snow or grooming is poor (especially in spring melt) to denote where snow conditions (and not only angle) are in fact the safest way to the base

[SFS_Rocketry]

In Austria, Germany and Switzerland, we have a blue, red and a black circle. For trails there is a red diamond or for the hard ones a red diamond with black edges.

[pollall]

I have 2 hours until my engineering midterm, and here I am watching a video about ski resort terrain levels.


I have no regrets.

[mbtravel]

Whenever i visit a new mountain i always start with the green and work my way up the levels so there are no surprises.

[aidanmoore]

I love how you showed my home mountain Stowe so much

[couchpotatoinc]

been snowboarding since like 9 but still thoroughly enjoyed this. I would add on to the end: terrain park features are usually individually marked with a size from S to XXL, some resorts also have XS. The sign at the entrance to a park will say "this park has S-L features", for example.

[KillmonAlfonso]

I was genuinely enlightened by the content in the video.

[Davidscht]

This is so interesting! It seems that American resorts are very different from European resorts in several ways. For one, basically all marked runs are groomed and cleared of obstacles in Europe. There are some ungroomed free terrain runs, but they are a rarity. Many of these double and triple black diamond runs seem like they would involve quite a bit of avalanche risk? I wonder if they are closed a lot of the time? Especially with the american approach to liabilty, it would seem many of these are a lawsuit waiting to happen (not saying that's right). In Europe, anything in a forest or dropping off a cliff or something like that would be considered off-piste, which is something many skiers consider something of a diviving line that many are hesistant to cross.