Edi wrote:

The US resorts tend to use skiable area as a measure of the size of the
resort, making it difficult to compare with the length of runs used by
almost of all of the European resorts.

Why the difference and is there any way of comparing US and Euro resorts on
size ?


I think it is down to different ways of owning/managing ski resorts. In
the US you are typically allowed to ski anywhere within the boundary,
but not allowed outside the area (although this rule has changed a lot
in the last few years it certainly used to be the case). So, it makes
sense to advetise how much area the ski company owns or has access to.
In Europe there are usually no such restrictions and you can pretty much
go where you like. Hence in Europe a ski resort can't really "claim" a
certain area - if they did then Chamonix would have a skiable area of
thousands of square miles - afterall you can ski from Chamonix to
Zermatt (OK, 1/2 of it is uphill, but it's often done). So in Europe it
makes sense for resorts to compete on the number and length of marked runs.

It's really just something that has stuck and I doubt will change. If
you want to compare areas across the pond then I would look at other
figures such as the number of skiers per hour that the resort can
transport uphill, that gives you a rough idea of the extent and
efficiency of the lift network.

There are a lot of other factors to consider too, for example N America
does seem to have more frequent snow fall (I always seem to find more
powder in the US and Canade than I do in Europe). The exchange rates too
make N America very attractive to Brits in particular. The obvious
downside to a European is the distance to get there.