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Ski Trail Signs 101: How To Read a Trail Map for Beginners

Originally posted on Powder | By Izzy Lidsky | Last updated Mar 15, 2025 8:12 AM ET

Some people (like me) are born without a great sense of direction, and finding our way around an unfamiliar mountain can be a daunting task. Even those with a good sense of direction can often still use a hand when skiing at a new place or in conditions that make it hard to navigate. Luckily, ski resorts tend to put a lot of time and thought into their trail maps to help skiers get around and stick to trails within their ability.

If you're new to skiing, ski area trail maps can look like gibberish. Different countries also use different symbols to indicate trail difficulty rating, which is not something you want to figure out on the fly. Whatever the reason you're looking, here are a few basics to know when it comes to reading ski area trail maps.

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Two blue square runs and a double black diamond at WhistlerPhoto: AWelshLad/Getty Images

Trail Difficulty Ratings

While knowing the name of a trail is helpful for meeting up with people, finding your way around, or the unfortunate event you need to call ski patrol, the most important place to start is with the difficulty ratings.

Trail difficulty is indicated by shapes and colors on trail signs and maps. These can vary by country so make sure you know them for the region you're skiing. It's also important to note that these ratings can vary a bit ski area to ski area. What feels like a blue run at one resort might feel like a green or black at another, so start small and go from there when you're skiing a new mountain.

In North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the ratings are as follows:

Green Circle: These are the easiest trails. They're usually wide open, groomed regularly and on a 0%–25% grade.

Blue Square: Blue square trails are considered intermediate. They are often groomed but not always as often, and are a bit steeper than green trails, usually on a 25-40% grade.

Black Diamond: Black diamond trails are advanced trails. They're steeper than blues, usually not groomed (although some places groom some of their black trails, and there's nothing like a steep groomer!), and you'll often find moguls and/or other obstacles on black trails.

Double Black Diamond: Double black diamond trails are experts-only trails. They're steep, un-groomed, sometimes narrow, and usually have exposed rocks, cliffs, or other features that require careful navigation.

Orange Rectangles: An orange rectangle with rounded edges on a trail sign indicates a terrain park. It's usually pretty obvious you've found the park by the jumps, rails, and boxes you'll see scattered throughout the run.

Some ski areas also use combinations of these two, such as a blue square with a black diamond inside of it. This just means the trail isn't quite an intermediate run, but not difficult enough to be expert.

In Europe, the ratings follow a similar structure but with different symbols. Green circles are considered beginner, blue circles are a bit more difficult or intermediate, red circles are considered hard, and black circles are expert.

Trail rating signs in Japan vary, but in general use a similar system to Europe and some resorts use the same system as North America.

How To Read a Trail Map

Ski area maps are pretty intuitive and easy to read, but here are a few quick tips using a map of Mt. Bachelor as an example.

Lifts are often indicated by red lines that start and end where the lifts do. Runs that have orange lines dashed over them indicate terrain parks. A wide open area like off the Summit of Bachelor with a trail name and rating means that everything around that is rated the same.

Ski Patrol shacks are indicated by the little red plus marks at the top and bottoms of some lifts and are a great spot to find a patroller when you need help. A dashed line, which in this case is yellow, indicates the ski area boundary.

Runs are often color-coded on a map so you can see how difficult they are and make a plan of where to go based on that mountain's trail ratings.

A ski patroller once told me, "We wouldn't put signs up if we didn't want people to look at them."

Ski areas are pretty good at marking things like closed trails, closed lifts, expert terrain, hazards, and so on. Even if you're the best skier on the mountain, pay attention to signs and trail maps and odds are you'll end up exactly where you need to be!

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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