Unvailed

Independent skiing · United States

About Unvailed

Unvailed is a map and directory of ski areas in the United States that are not owned or operated by Vail Resorts or Alterra Mountain Company. It is built for people who want to ski somewhere still run on its own terms: a family hill, a town mountain, a co-op, or a smaller company that is not one of those two.

Explore the map How we verify
Independent areas
457
Excluded Vail / Alterra
53
Map data vintage
Oct 2026

Why independents matter

Two companies now operate a large share of destination skiing in the US. Their passes are useful, and some independently owned mountains sell tickets on them. Those partner mountains stay in this directory. What leaves is ownership: when a resort is bought or operated by Vail or Alterra, it is no longer listed here.

The mountains that remain set their own ticket windows, keep local trail names, and often still answer to a town, a family, or a nonprofit. That is the skiing this site is for. Filters let you narrow further, down to a single owner or a small regional group, when you want that.

What counts as independent

Every listed ski area has one owner and one tier. The tier follows how many US ski areas that owner runs, not which pass the mountain sells.

  • Independent

    One ski area, or run by a co-op, nonprofit, or municipality. The hill answers to its community, not a portfolio.

  • Small group

    The same owner runs 2 to 5 ski areas. Regional character, shared back office.

  • Large group

    The same owner runs 6 or more areas. Boyne, POWDR, and Mountain Capital Partners stay listed so you can filter them yourself.

What you will find

Each listing has a location, an ownership tier, the passes it accepts, and the stats we could verify from a cited source. If we could not verify a number, it is shown as unknown rather than guessed.

  • Location first. Seeded from OpenSkiData, checked by hand, drawn on OpenFreeMap tiles.
  • One owner, one tier. No double counting, no pass-based relabeling.
  • Passes shown as accepted. Epic or Ikon partner tickets do not remove a mountain.
  • Cited stats or Unknown. No estimated vertical, price, or terrain mix. A guess is treated as an error.

How that works in detail is on the methodology page. Each resort record also carries its own verifiedAt date.

Where the facts come from

  1. The resort's own website: trail map, stats, tickets, about page.
  2. The state ski association.
  3. OpenSkiMap, built from OpenStreetMap (ODbL).
  4. Wikipedia, only when a primary source is unavailable.

The exclusion list was transcribed from the NSAA ownership page updated February 2025 and re-checked against Vail and Alterra resort lists. OpenStreetMap data vintage is October 2026. Resort data includes © OpenStreetMap contributors via OpenSkiMap (ODbL). We do not copy review text.

Questions we hear

Why only Vail and Alterra?

They are the two multi-state consolidators this project tracks. Other groups such as Boyne, POWDR, Mountain Capital Partners, Pacific Group, and Aspen Skiing Company stay on the list, with filters to include or exclude them.

Does selling Epic or Ikon tickets remove a mountain?

No. An independently owned mountain that only sells partner tickets on Epic or Ikon stays in, and the passes it accepts are shown on the listing.

What if ownership changes?

The exclusion list is re-checked against the companies' own resort lists. If a mountain was bought, sold, or is merely operated by Vail or Alterra, report a correction so the record can be fixed.

Why do some stats say Unknown?

If no source supports a value, the field stays null and the site shows Unknown. We do not estimate vertical, price, terrain mix, or amenities. You can still include those resorts when you filter.

Find your mountain

457 independent areas, one map. Start with the full directory or browse by state.

Open the directory Browse states