Bored Skier Recreates Popular California Ski Resort In Minecraft

It’s the end of August, and unless you’re a skier fortunate enough to hop on a jet to South America, odds are you’re tired of waiting for winter to get here already.

Redditor u/ReforminDesert expressed how bored they are waiting for the season to start, and rather than playing a new skiing video game, they took matters into their own hands.

Using a few mods and some time to kill, ReforminDesert recreated California’s Kirkwood Mountain Resort on a near 1:1 scale in Minecraft. Yes, that same Minecraft that your 9-year-old cousin won’t stop playing on his iPad at the dinner table.

If you’ve played Minecraft, ReforminDesert’s rendering of Kirkwood is impressive, but not surprising. Players have created working calculators, computers, and other far more complicated creations in the past. But if you’re a ski nerd who obsesses over trail maps and topography, be prepared for a real treat. See below.

“I was messing around with the Tellus mod in Minecraft, which lets you take real places and generate it down to a 1:1 scale if you want, so that’s exactly what I did with my favorite mountain,” writes ReforminDesert. “Took about 2 hours with Voxy+Chunky, but came out way better than I expected, although the snow doesn’t work properly for some reason. Give me suggestions on another mountains that could be fun/easy to do if you want to see yours!”

Minecraft doesn’t have a skiing mod, as far as I know, but it would be fun to walk and fly around a 1:1 recreation of your favorite hill. If ReforminDesert is taking requests, here are a few ski resorts I would love to see recreated in Minecraft:

• Palisades Tahoe, California
• Big Sky, Montana
• Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
• Ski Portillo, Chile
• Marmolada Glacier, Italy
• Smugglers’ Notch, Vermont

Which are you hoping he’ll take a stab at next?

ReforminDesert used Minecraft-specific mods to recreate Kirkwood, but video game designer Jesse Zigthor is taking it to the next level with his new video game, Ski-E-O!.

POWDER’s Ian Greenwood chatted with Zigthor about the upcoming game and how he used publicly available LiDAR data to recreate real-life mountains. Early players of the game will recognize Sugar Bowl’s Mt. Judah and Stowe’s Mt. Mansfield.

Is skiing having a moment in the video game world? It sure seems like it.

Related: A New Ski Resort Game Features Simulated Snow and Peaks You’ll Recognize