The 10 Best Snowy Getaways in North America

Yes, Big Sky is home to what many of us consider America’s premier ski resort, but there’s plenty of other snow-based fun to uncover within Lone Peak’s shadow. Lone Mountain’s forests on a sunny day provide the ideal environment to try snowshoeing on a guided tour. Should you prefer to course over the meadows and through the woods with four-legged power, Spirit of the North offers daily dogsledding experiences. Lone Mountain Ranch has the horse drawn sleigh dinner down, a wonderful jingle bell ride through the pines, log cabin dinner and return under the stars. And remember, the West Yellowstone entrance, with snow coaches, snow machines, and winter trails, is about one hour from Big Sky.

There are few images more serene than that of a solitary angler casting her fly in an alpine river in the throes of winter surrounded by snowbanks and framed by mountains. Several guiding services offer full and half day excursions to the Gunnison and Taylor Rivers and several local creeks. Crested Butte Nordic trailheads depart directly from the historic downtown, then stretch out for 45 miles throughout the valley. Sledders will find four distinct tubing hills, amateur mushers can choose from several dog sledding tours, and almost one dozen fat tire cycling trails continue to expand.

Located on the Lake Superior coast, Duluth has always embraced winter. Home to Spirit Mountain, a local ski hill known also for its four-lane tubing track, surrounding lakes fill with traditional ice fishing huts, pond hockey shinny games and snow machine tracks. Duluth is well known as a cross-country skiing hub; the city teams with the Duluth Cross-country Ski Club to maintain and groom more than 55 miles of trails throughout the area. Historically, Duluth’s reliable winter conditions and Nordic culture combined to create a dynamic sauna culture. Today Cedar + Stone has added a floating sauna that features guided thermic cycles including natural cold plunges and thermal treatments. Duluth has also grown into a fat tire biking destination with miles of groomed single-track trails.

Québec’s Eastern Townships offer a little bit of everything white and wintry, a beautiful snow globe waiting to be shaken with more than 600 miles of snowshoe, Nordic ski and fat tire biking trails. If alpine ski and snowboarding is more your thing, consider taking turns at Bromont, Mont Sutton, Mont Orford and Owl’s Head resorts. The Townships are also famous for ribbon skating, gorgeous ice strands like the 1.7-mile Magog Ice Trail that brilliantly blend outdoor adventure, nature and exercise. One can’t help but cozy up in this bucolic setting with a cup of tea in Knowlton, the bucolic setting for Louise Penny’s wonderful Three Pines mysteries, especially when sitting in the writer’s own Café Three Pines, a lovely spot located downstairs from Livres Lac Brome, a fabulous independent bookstore.

Syracuse and Rochester receive over 100 inches of snow annually. Beyond these cities, the greater Finger Lakes region benefits from the same lake effect storms that roll in off Lake Ontario to create one of the snowiest regions in North America, an area that teems with outdoor recreation. Green Lakes State Park unfurls almost ten miles of trails, one of several area parks that maintain snowshoe and cross-country tracks through winter. The Cumming Nature Center in Naples adds 15 miles of groomed ski trails to complement 3 miles of designated snowshoe tracks. Visitors can also attend maple sugaring demonstrations, woodsmen competitions, and interpretive walks through the 900-acre preserve. From Taughannock Falls State Park to Watkins Glen, the frozen cataracts glisten during the winter months, too.

Rare is the year that Girdwood doesn’t hover near the top of snowiest places in North America. Ditto for the adjacent Alyeska Resort, Alaska’s largest ski area as well as gateway via the two-year old Black Diamond Club to the Chugach Range, known far and wide to back country skiers for its steeps and snow quality. You don’t need a helicopter to access the pristine country here however, Alaska Backcountry Access offers snow machine tours, groomed cross country trails transect the valley floor, and the Bird to Gird Bike Path is excellent for fat tire forays. The Alaska Mushing School presents half-day mushing classes in addition to classic 1.5-hour and 3-hour nighttime dog sledding.

Every winter these days, skiers and snowboarders start watching the weather maps to discover where the snow is falling. Call it the Ikon and Epic effect. This year British Columbia’s Powder Highway, a stretch of road that contains eight resorts, cat and heliskiing operators and a score of backcountry lodges, is getting the goods. Home to Kicking Horse Alpine Resort, Golden is leading the pack at a gallop with record breaking snowfall. The Golden Nordic Ski Club maintains a chalet, over twenty miles of cross-country and snowshoe trails on Dawn Mountain. The Kicking Horse Ski Club maintains trails outside of town in lightly visited Yoho National Park. Golden Adventure Tours leads the Great Divide Dogsled Tour, 10 miles of mushing across Kicking Horse Pass at the Continental Divide.

Jay Peak is getting pounded, having recorded over 300 inches of snow before the start of 2026. As is often the case, no other eastern ski area has matched the “Jay Cloud’s” production, dump after dump in what looks to be a historic year. Winter cyclists have added fat tire biking to a broad range of snowy adventures here. Riders will find more than five miles of groomed wooded trails and freeride terrain with jumps, steeps and other shred-worthy features. The Nordic ski and snowshoe trail system offers a groomed, mixed-ability system with over twenty unique trails. Jay Peak also designates uphill ski touring and snowshoeing routes most days for those dedicated to earning their turns.

Most people who live outside the Pacific Northwest are surprised to learn that Mt. Baker receives the most annual snow on the North American continent. The locally owned ski hill also claims the historical record for most snow on earth, a whopping 1,140-inches (95-feet!) during the 1998-99 winter. The Mount Baker Highway is littered with trailheads like Artist Point for snowshoeing. Salmon Ridge Sno-Park is a popular cross-country skiing destination. Cascade Mountain Ascents utilize Mt. Baker as a living lab to teach alpine guiding, avalanche awareness and orienteering skills.

Snow falls in feet in and around Truckee, Lake Tahoe’s most authentic mountain town surrounded by ski areas, national forests and public trails. Snowshoeing through the Coldstream Valley, a 3-5 mile out-and-back route, provides a perfect introduction to this sublime winter activity. The 7-mile Tahoe Donner Trail System adds ridgeline climbs to the adrenaline-pumping mix. The Tahoe Donner Cross Country Ski Center also offers 65 Nordic ski trails that cover all mixed-ability levels on more than 60 miles of trails. Tahoe Donner Snowplay is one of fifteen exceptional Truckee area destinations for sledding, tubing, and other snow bound shenanigans.