What do all those colors and shapes mean anyway?
When I first started skiing, I had no idea what all those ski colors and shapes meant. I knew to stay away from reds and blacks but that blues and especially greens were A-OK to try my wobbly legs. I later learned that most of Europe uses the same color rating scheme. It’s pretty simple and since seemingly every map, every website and every booklet or pamphlet uses certain hues, it’s best to have an idea what they all signify.
Most of (Western) Europe’s ski resorts use the same color rating system as far as the places I’ve skied. Some countries, however, use shapes with the corresponding color while other ski resorts use solid colored squares or circles or even diamonds. In America, most slope colors are determined by a slope’s angle. European ski resorts can and do implement a color rating system for most pistes, but they take into account steepness variation, turns, exposed rock(s), narrow passageways and some slope angles to name but a few. I may be wrong, but I think the European system is a much better system taking in so many variables at once.
Here is what all those colors and symbols mean (*if you can help me better describe these, just post your comment to this thread).
Green: Easiest slope, usually for beginners. Some of these may not be slopes at all, but gently rolling undulations to the side of the ski resort. These are great practice areas for beginners, kids and those going from one path to the next.
Blue: Blue pistes are often the easy routes in any given European ski resort, from Baqueira Beret in Spain to Bad Kleinkirchheim, in Austria. These trails are always nicely groomed and carved so beginners don’t have to do too much maneuvering. The blues pistes are typically between a 10-25% gradient.
Red: Red pistes all over Europe are considered intermediate level slopes. Reds don’t necessarily have to have a higher gradient but can be narrow. Sometimes the grooming machines cannot fit through the narrowness, making the red slope more dangerous to beginners. I often flip head over kettle in these sections when I’m not ready for them.
Black: Unless you are an expert, or have some crazy intermediate skills, then stay off the black runs. The blacks are ordinarily less in number at any resort but are the hardest and most dangerous. They are often not groomed. There are easy and hard blacks, so be sure to know what your getting in to before tipping your skis over the edge!
Black diamond(s): These colors and shapes are conventionally found in northern Europe where the skiers get truly crazy. They mean that the pistes are especially tricky, dangerous, deadly, avalanche-y or worst. Often the black diamonds are replaced by the color orange in other countries (such as Switzerland). If you don’t know the difference between yellow and orange, be careful in Zermatt (for instance) because the pistes are ungroomed, unpatrolled and off-piste. If you don’t have a clue, it’s best to stick to blues and reds.
You could say also the resorts that have other colors for interlinked trails. I think that the crosscountry skiing and even snowboarding parks have different colors and symbols. I forget some of them but the trails that connect, the ones for backcountry and the don’t forget the snowboarding. Sometimes I remember that when there are one or two diamond shapes with black that the piste will be too dangerous for most in some countries.
I have skied too in both the USA and in much places in Europe. I think the European system is more accurate. I do think blue and green are sometimes mixed and it’s hard to tell them apart. When I go to smaller resorts I’m finding that there are no green pistes. Some of the signs are all blue. What does the black diamonds mean and why do the ski resorts use them?
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