![]() ![]() If they live in the north-central part of the state, they’ve got a fine little hill to do it on. The outdoor boom hit Ohio as much as it hit New England or Colorado. Last year, Snow Trails began limiting season pass sales for the first time in its 60 seasons. The place, in fact, has more skiers than it knows what to do with. The ski area only averages 30 to 50 inches of snowfall per year, depending upon the source, but there’s plenty of juice (snowmaking) to keep the lifts spinning. North-facing Snow Trails, seated high (for Ohio) in the Possum Run Valley, right off Interstate 71 between Columbus (population 889,000) and Cleveland (population 383,000), combines four of the five. Most of America’s ski areas, if you pick them apart, exist because of a favorable combination of at least a couple of the following factors: elevation, population, aspect, accessibility, snowfall – often lake effect. Instead, Ohio ski life is clustered around or between the state’s many large cities – Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland. Eastern Ohio – the western borderlands of Appalachia – is actually quite hilly. Take Ohio: why – how – does this windblown flatland host five public ski areas (a sixth, Big Creek, operates as a private club near Cleveland). ![]() So that 16 may seem low, but the lower Midwest’s ski area count is actually quite impressive if we look at the macro conditions. The upper Midwest, by contrast, hosts 90 ski areas across three states: 40 in Michigan, 31 in Wisconsin, 19 in Minnesota. That’s just 16 ski areas across five states. Ohio hosts five public ski areas Indiana has two Illinois, four Iowa, three Missouri, two. How is it that there are so many ski areas in Southern California? Or New Mexico? Or how about that map dot above Tucson, or, for God’s sake, Ala-freaking-bama? Are those real? Why are there so many ski areas in practically snowless eastern Pennsylvania, and so few (relatively speaking) in snow-choked and mountainous Washington and Oregon?īut one of the most curious sectors of U.S. Stare at it for a while, and the American ski map teases some captivating storylines. ![]()
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