Condé Nast Traveler rates North America’s most loved ski resorts: Whistler Blackcomb leads Canada as US readers favour the classics

Condé Nast Traveler has refreshed its annual best-of guides for North American skiing, and the headline is a changing of the guard. Big Sky Resort in Montana has been named the No. 1 ski resort in the United States in the publication's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards — unseating Aspen Mountain, which topped the 2025 list. The win reflects the magazine's broader pattern: these rankings come from reader surveys, not editor picks, so a single standout season or a high-profile investment can reshuffle the board year to year.

Big Sky's decade finally pays off

Big Sky's ascent to the top spot isn't a surprise to anyone who's watched the resort's trajectory. The win caps what Visit Big Sky describes as "Big Sky 2025" — a decade-long push of continued investment in lift infrastructure, on-mountain amenities and guest experience. Visit Big Sky CEO Brad Niva framed the recognition as earned rather than lucky, noting that it comes from well-traveled readers who know what's worth returning to.

The resort is leaning into the moment for the coming season. Iglu Big Sky — a snow-built bar constructed using centuries-old European alpine techniques, stationed at the base of the Lone Peak Tram — returns for 2026-27 with a bigger footprint. Big Sky's season opens November 25.

United States: a broad, varied list

The US ranking spans 30 resorts, a wider field than Canada’s five, and includes destinations across Colorado, Utah, California, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, Montana and beyond. The list is less a pure measure of terrain size or lift capacity and more a snapshot of what discerning US ski travellers value: atmosphere, service, scenery, snow reliability and a sense of place.

While the full top-30 list is extensive, the pattern is clear: Colorado and Utah dominate in terms of sheer number of entries, reflecting their high-altitude terrain, established resort infrastructure and strong international recognition. California’s Sierra resorts and the East’s classic destinations also feature prominently, showing that the US market rewards both scale and heritage.

The 2025 U.S. ranking, Big Sky's immediate predecessor list, gives a sense of how deep the competition runs and who else is in the conversation: Aspen Mountain held the top spot, followed by Big Sky, Bretton Woods (New Hampshire), Telluride, Jackson Hole, Vail, Deer Valley, Breckenridge, Sun Valley and Blue Mountain rounding out the top ten. Colorado dominates the list numerically — Aspen Mountain, Telluride, Vail, Breckenridge, Snowmass and Steamboat all placed inside the top 20 — but the list is notably coast-to-wide, pulling in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York and Idaho alongside the big Western names.

Beyond the resorts themselves, Condé Nast Traveler's broader readers' survey — more than 798,000 votes cast across the 2026 awards — also recognized ski-adjacent lodging in the Mountain West. The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, a ski-in/ski-out property in Beaver Creek, Colorado, placed fourth among Mountain West resorts, while Utah's Sundance and Black Desert placed third and fifth respectively.

Canada's mountains, and a different kind of consistency

Canada: a tight top five

Canada’s top five are separated by just 0.33 points, underscoring how competitive the country’s leading resorts remain in the eyes of sophisticated ski travellers.

Rank Resort Score

1 Whistler Blackcomb 91

2 Banff Sunshine 90.91

3 Silver Star Mountain 90.87

4 Mont-Tremblant 90.83

5 Lake Louise 90.67

Whistler Blackcomb’s number-one position reflects its status as North America’s largest ski resort and its enduring draw as a two-mountain, village-based destination with year-round appeal. Banff Sunshine and Lake Louise give the Canadian Rockies two entries in the top five, while Silver Star’s third-place finish is a notable result for the interior of British Columbia.

Mont-Tremblant’s inclusion at number four is the East’s strongest showing, reinforcing Quebec’s position as a serious alternative to Western Canada for skiers seeking a polished, pedestrian-friendly resort experience.

In Condé Nast Traveler's broader North American reader rankings — which blend U.S. and Canadian resorts into a single table — Whistler Blackcomb and Panorama Mountain Village both placed inside the top ten for 2025, alongside U.S. heavyweights Vail, Aspen Mountain, Taos Ski Valley, Big Sky and Beaver Creek, underscoring that Canadian resorts compete directly with — and sometimes beat — their better-funded American counterparts on guest experience rather than just terrain size.

For travelers planning this winter, the practical takeaway is less about chasing the literal No. 1 spot and more about what's changed underneath it: Big Sky's decade of infrastructure investment has visibly paid off, Aspen remains a top-tier pick even after losing its crown, and in Canada, Whistler's dominance continues largely unchallenged — though British Columbia's smaller resorts, Big White and Panorama especially, keep climbing into the same conversation.

What the two rankings tell us

Taken together, the 2025 Readers’ Choice lists offer a useful cross-border snapshot of North American ski preferences. Canada’s top five are tightly clustered and dominated by big-name, high-altitude destinations, while the US list is broader and more geographically dispersed, rewarding a wider range of resort types.

For skiers planning the 2026/27 season, the lists suggest a few clear takeaways:

• Whistler Blackcomb remains the benchmark for scale, village life and year-round infrastructure.

• Banff Sunshine and Lake Louise continue to define the Canadian Rockies experience.

• Silver Star and Mont-Tremblant show that mid-sized, polished resorts can compete with the giants.

In the US, Colorado and Utah remain the backbone of the market, while California and the East hold their own through heritage and atmosphere.

Planning implications for 2026/27

For travellers, the rankings offer a practical shortlist: Whistler for scale and variety, Banff and Lake Louise for scenery and snow security, Silver Star for a more intimate BC experience, and Mont-Tremblant for a polished Eastern alternative. In the US, the list points towards Colorado and Utah for high-altitude reliability, California for Sierra drama, and the East for heritage and accessibility.

For operators, the message is equally clear: terrain and lifts matter, but what increasingly separates the top-ranked resorts is the total guest experience—service, village atmosphere, snow reliability and a sense of place. As the 2026/27 season approaches, both countries’ leading resorts will be judged not just on their mountains but on how well they deliver the complete package.

Why the rankings move

Worth noting: these aren't static "best of all time" lists. They're annual reader surveys, and the methodology factors in far more than lift lines and snow quality — dining, lodging, service and overall vacation experience all weigh in, which is part of why a resort like Bretton Woods (better known for family-friendly terrain than extreme vertical) can outrank larger Western mountains. Condé Nast Traveler's deputy global editorial director, Jesse Ashlock, has pointed to that broader experiential lens as central to how the awards are meant to be read, rather than as a pure ranking of ski terrain.