Don’t Let the Trail Signs Fool You—These Runs Are Much Harder Than Advertised

One of the greatest joys—and terrors—of skiing at a new resort is not knowing what to expect. You dip into a blue run and find yourself in trees tight enough to warrant a black diamond. Or you spend an afternoon laying down tracks on a mellow, groomed green only to find it crusty, icy, ungroomed— and definitely not for beginners—the very next day.

Here’s the catch: There is no universal standard for rating the difficulty of ski runs. Every mountain grades its terrain relative to its own slopes, so a blue at one resort might be a black at another. Then there are the conditions, which are always in flux. Weather, grooming, and skier traffic can transform a run overnight (or in an hour). A freshly groomed cruiser can become a sheet of ice after a freeze, and a black-rated mogul run that hasn’t seen fresh snow in weeks can develop refrigerator-sized bumps that scare off even expert skiers.

Keep reading: How to Read a Trail Map and Navigate a Ski Resort

In skiing, the trail sign only tells part of the story; the mountain and the conditions determine the rest. To that end, below are a few ski runs that regularly punch far enough above their weight to warrant a more difficult rating.

Paradise, Mad River Glen, Vt.

• Trail rating: Black
• Our rating: Double Black

In the skiing world, Mad River Glen is a holdout; they don’t allow snowboarders, they rely primarily on natural snow, and don’t do a ton of grooming. They also keep their trail difficulty system simple; runs are either single greens, single blues, or single blacks. However, many skiers agree that Paradise is deserving of a double-black rating thanks to a mandatory drop over a frozen waterfall.

And that’s not all the resort has: From the same peak at Paradise is Catamount, a single blue, and often considered to be more difficult than most. Many skiers claim it skis more like a black than a blue.

Seattle Ridge, Sun Valley, Idaho

• Trail rating: Green
• Our rating: Blue

The entire slope below Seattle Ridge Lodge, on the southern side of Sun Valley Resort‘s Bald Mountain, punches well above its weight. On a map, the grouping of single-green runs looks like a beginner’s paradise, when in reality the Seattle Ridge terrain is considered steep enough to warrant a blue, or even double-blue rating.

Trestle, Winter Park, Colo.

• Trail rating: Black
• Our rating: Double Black

For some, moguls present a fun challenge. But even dedicated bump skiers report having trouble on Winter Park’s Trestle. The single-black ski run is accessed from a single blue or a few double-black, extreme-rated runs. And in our opinion, Trestle leans more toward the latter. After days of being skied, the moguls get so big they’re almost unskiable.

Shakedown, Smugglers’ Notch, Vt.

• Trail rating: Black
• Our rating: Double Black

Smugglers’ Notch has plenty of double-black-diamond terrain (and even the East Coast’s only triple-black-diamond run), but the team rating the mountain’s runs somehow forgot to include Shakedown on the double-black-diamond list. Shakedown is a single-black tree run that has tight trees at the top and enough drop and length to warrant a double-black rating.

Scrub, Loveland, Colo.

• Trail rating: Blue
• Our rating: Black

Scrub is a relatively short blue below Loveland‘s Lift 4, but the run is noticeably steeper than most of the ski area’s other blues, and even some milder black runs. The speculation is that the ski area downgraded Scrub’s rating because the run is one of the most intuitive ways to get back to the bottom of Lift 4, which otherwise has a lot of black diamonds that funnel down to the base.

Pushover, Sugarbush, Vt.

• Trail rating: Green
• Our rating: Blue

Pushover is one of the main beginner thoroughfares to the resort’s Lincoln Peak Village, but there are certain parts that are steep enough to feel like a blue (prompting some to take off their skis and walk the steeper parts). It doesn’t help that Pushover can also get icy quickly.

It’s a trait Pushover shares with Walt’s Trail on the Mt. Ellen side of Sugarbush, which skis more like a blue when it’s ungroomed and the waterbars below the surface are exposed.