ByLarry Olmsted,
Senior Contributor.
Snow has been making headlines recently, from very rare winter storms in places like El Paso, Texas and Georgia to an unusual road-closing Pennsylvania avalanche and near record totals in Worcester, Massachusetts.
But while all of these are extremely uncommon winter meteorological events, they would not raise an eyebrow in the Andes mountains of Chile, where the Southern Patagonian Ice Field is generally believed to be the snowiest spot on earth, according to the Washington Post. To put that in the perspective of winter sports, this part of Chile routinely receives annual snowfalls more than ten times those at world renowned U.S. ski resorts such as Sun Valley, ID and Lake Placid Winter Olympics ski venue Whiteface Mountain, NY.
Skiers and snowboarders love snow, but so do many winter travelers, who seek out fun options like ice bars, hotels and igloos, hot springs, stargazing, dogsledding and more in the colder months. If you love snow and you want a lot of it, these are the snowiest places in the world, overall and for specific types of travel. (NOTE: There is considerable variance in snow statistics, with no “official” rating bodies, and various sources often list wildly divergent numbers for the same places, so whenever possible I have chosen what I consider the most reliable source and detailed where the numbers cited come from).
