Sierra Nevada
Weather at Sierra Nevada
Low: -6.4°C / High: -2.6°C
Wind: W 14 km/h
Recent Snowfall
24 hours: 8 cm
7 days: 13 cm
Snow Depth
Base: 400 cm
Season Total: 311 cm
Resort Status
Lifts: 19/19
Trails: 88/107 kms
Resort Overview
Michael Fulton
45+ resortsMelbourne-based ski expert with 45+ resorts across 5 continents. Specialises in Australian skiing and riding and international resort comparisons.
Skiing for 14 years and visited resorts in:
🇦🇺 Australia (6) • 🇺🇸 USA (15) • 🇯🇵 Japan (5) • 🇪🇺 Europe (10)
Sierra Nevada is the highest ski resort in Spain and the southernmost in Europe, a combination that produces one of the most geographically unusual skiing experiences on the continent. The ski area sits on the northwestern slopes of Veleta — the third-highest peak in mainland Spain at 3,398m — with the base village of Pradollano at 2,100m and the highest lifts reaching 3,282m, delivering a skiable vertical of 1,182m.
The resort covers 107km of marked terrain across 116 runs, weighted toward intermediate and advanced skiers with 40% intermediate, 37% advanced, 16% beginner and 7% expert — an accessible spread that reflects Sierra Nevada's status as one of the most heavily visited ski resorts in Spain, predominantly by a domestic clientele travelling up from Granada, Málaga and the wider Andalusian coast.
The resort hosted the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in 1996, the 2015 Winter Universiade and the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in March 2017 — a competition record that confirms both the calibre of the groomed race terrain and the infrastructure capacity to handle major international events.
The entire ski area sits above the treeline, as Sierra Nevada's latitude and elevation place it in a Mediterranean alpine climate zone with virtually no subalpine forest at skiable altitudes. This gives the mountain an open, exposed character distinct from the forested Pyrenean resorts further north, with sweeping uninterrupted views across Andalusia that on clear days extend south to the African coastline across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Live Sierra Nevada Webcams
Trails & Terrain
Trails
Total Runs
116
Total Area
107km
66.5 miles
Sierra Nevada Lift System
Sierra Nevada operates 19 lifts serving the full mountain, including one gondola, five six-seat chairlifts, three triple chairs, three quad chairs, two doubles and five T-bars across the upper terrain. The Al-Andalus and Borreguiles gondolas are the resort's primary access arteries, rising from the Pradollano base to the Borreguiles mid-station at 2,675m — the main hub from which the majority of ski runs originate.
From Borreguiles, the lift network fans out across the Zona Borreguiles, Zona Laguna, Zona Veleta and Zona Montebajo sectors, with the Veleta zone serving the highest and most demanding terrain on the mountain. Combined uphill capacity across the 21-lift system reaches approximately 45,200 skiers per hour.
The gondola connection means that non-skiers, pedestrians and sightseers can access the mid-mountain facilities on a pedestrian pass — a common feature at Sierra Nevada given the resort's role as a year-round attraction within the Sierra Nevada National Park. The Mirlo Blanco area at the base provides a dedicated recreation zone with an ice rink, tobogganing and ski-bike facilities, designed to accommodate non-skiing family members while skiers use the main lift network above.
The resort's snowmaking infrastructure supplements natural snowfall to secure reliable early-season opening and protect the key Pradollano-to-Borreguiles access runs, which are critical to operation given the resort's single-entry base structure.
Lifts
Total Lifts
19
Lift Types
6
Lift Breakdown
Season Info
Sierra Nevada operates one of the longest ski seasons in Spain, running from late November through to early May in strong snow years, with the 2025/26 season scheduled from 13 December to 4 May. The resort averages around 4 metres of annual snowfall, delivered predominantly in concentrated winter storms rather than the sustained Atlantic snowfall patterns of the Pyrenees.
What distinguishes Sierra Nevada's snow preservation is altitude — with the entire ski area above 2,100m in a high-pressure Mediterranean climate, cold temperatures persist long after natural snowfall, and the base depth as of early March 2025/26 stands at 400cm against a season total of 298cm. This reflects the resort's pattern of relying on altitude-preserved snowpack rather than frequent fresh accumulation.
The resort records the most sunshine hours of any ski destination in Europe — a product of its Andalusian latitude and the predominance of Mediterranean high-pressure systems across southern Spain in winter. This makes spring skiing at Sierra Nevada a genuinely different proposition to alpine alternatives: warm temperatures at the base, firm morning groomers on upper runs and the surreal possibility of combining a morning ski session with an afternoon on the Costa del Sol beaches 90 minutes away by road.
The late-season window — typically March through to early May — is widely regarded as the optimal period, when base depths are at their deepest, daylight hours are long and the mountain's competition-grade terrain on the Veleta sector is running at full capacity.
Season Info
Current Season
2025 - 2026
Opening Day
12/13/2025
Closing Day
5/4/2026
Days Open
143
Location & Getting There
Sierra Nevada sits within the Sierra Nevada National Park in the province of Granada, Andalusia, approximately 32km southeast of Granada city along the A-395 road. The resort base at Pradollano is around 50 minutes by car from Granada city centre, making it one of the most city-proximate ski resorts in Europe — a factor that drives the predominantly day-visitor and weekend character of the mountain during the season.
A regular bus service operates from Granada's main bus station to Pradollano during ski season, running several times daily on weekdays and more frequently on weekends, with the journey taking around 45 minutes. The closest major international airport is Granada-Jaén Federico García Lorca Airport, 55km from the resort, though it handles limited international routes. Málaga Airport is the main international gateway at around 170km to the west, with connections from across Europe during the winter season.
The city of Granada is the resort's most compelling draw beyond the skiing itself. The Alhambra Palace — one of the most visited monuments in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site — sits within the city, making Granada one of the few places on earth where a day on a ski slope can be followed by dinner in the shadow of a medieval Moorish fortress.
The resort village of Pradollano operates as a year-round community with a permanent population, giving it a more self-contained character than the seasonal stations typical of the Pyrenees, including supermarkets, a pharmacy, multiple ski schools and a range of restaurants and bars that operate on Spanish hours through the après-ski period and into the evening.
Sierra Nevada
, spain