Elevation of 24 western and mountain towns

Sorted from highest to lowest. Each figure is one reading of the USGS 3DEP elevation grid (1 arc-second) at the point USGS lists for that town in its Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).

#	Town	State	Feet	Meters	GNIS point (lat, lon)
1	Breckenridge	CO	9,732	2,966.2	39.4817, -106.0384
2	Vail	CO	8,182	2,493.8	39.6403, -106.3742
3	Aspen	CO	7,891	2,405.1	39.1911, -106.8175
4	Mammoth Lakes	CA	7,871	2,399.1	37.6485, -118.9721
5	Estes Park	CO	7,527	2,294.2	40.3772, -105.5217
6	Park City	UT	7,016	2,138.4	40.6461, -111.4980
7	Santa Fe	NM	6,996	2,132.5	35.6870, -105.9378
8	Flagstaff	AZ	6,900	2,103.2	35.1981, -111.6513
9	Big Bear City	CA	6,775	2,065	34.2611, -116.8450
10	Big Bear Lake	CA	6,750	2,057.3	34.2439, -116.9114
11	Jackson	WY	6,240	1,901.8	43.4799, -110.7624
12	Cheyenne	WY	6,089	1,856	41.1400, -104.8202
13	Colorado Springs	CO	6,008	1,831.2	38.8339, -104.8214
14	Denver	CO	5,276	1,608.2	39.7392, -104.9847
15	Albuquerque	NM	4,955	1,510.2	35.0845, -106.6511
16	Reno	NV	4,504	1,372.8	39.5296, -119.8138
17	Sedona	AZ	4,338	1,322.2	34.8697, -111.7610
18	Salt Lake City	UT	4,263	1,299.5	40.7608, -111.8910
19	El Paso	TX	3,713	1,131.8	31.7587, -106.4869
20	Boise	ID	2,699	822.7	43.6135, -116.2035
21	Asheville	NC	2,128	648.6	35.6009, -82.5540
22	Las Vegas	NV	1,997	608.7	36.1750, -115.1372
23	Gatlinburg	TN	1,290	393.1	35.7143, -83.5102
24	Phoenix	AZ	1,088	331.8	33.4484, -112.0740

Why a town has more than one "elevation"

A town covers many square miles, and the ground rises and falls across it. A single elevation figure always belongs to one spot. Ours belongs to the point recorded for the town in GNIS, the federal place-name database. A figure you see elsewhere may be for an airport, a courthouse step or a benchmark, so a gap of a few dozen feet is normal and does not mean either number is wrong.

Jackson, Wyoming is listed rather than "Jackson Hole": in GNIS, Jackson Hole is the valley, and the town is Jackson. Big Bear has two GNIS towns, Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City, and both are in the table.

Snowfall at a station for each town

For 12 of these towns, we list one NOAA weather station that has 1991–2020 snowfall normals; the station is named in the table. The stations are not at the GNIS points above, so their elevations differ from the table. The yearly figure is the twelve monthly averages added together.

Town	Snow a year (in)	Station	Station feet	Data
Santa Fe	20.2	SANTA FE 2	6,756	USC00298085
Flagstaff	90.1	FLAGSTAFF AP	6,999	USW00003103
Colorado Springs	32.5	COLORADO SPRINGS MUNICIPAL AP	6,182	USW00093037
Denver	49.0	DENVER-CENTRAL PARK	5,284	USW00023062
Albuquerque	7.9	ALBUQUERQUE INTL AP	5,310	USW00023050
Reno	20.9	RENO AIRPORT	4,405	USW00023185
Salt Lake City	51.9	SALT LAKE CITY INTL ARPT	4,227	USW00024127
El Paso	2.8	EL PASO INTL AP	3,944	USW00023044
Boise	17.6	BOISE AIR TERMINAL	2,823	USW00024131
Asheville	10.3	ASHEVILLE REGIONAL AIRPORT	2,118	USW00003812
Las Vegas	0.2	HARRY REID INTL AP	2,175	USW00023169
Phoenix	0.0	SOUTH PHOENIX	1,155	USC00028112

Only towns with a station and a published normal are listed. Monthly figures for Denver, Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs are on their own pages. Phoenix uses the SOUTH PHOENIX station because ACIS returns no 1991–2020 snowfall normal for the PHOENIX AIRPORT station (USW00023183, query).

Where these numbers come from

Town points: USGS GNIS Domestic Names, state text files (for example the Colorado file), downloaded 2026-09-28.
Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program 1 arc-second GeoTIFF tiles (for example USGS_1_n40w105), read 2026-09-28. Converted from meters at 0.3048 m per foot and rounded to the nearest foot.
Snowfall: NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals, data retrieved through the Regional Climate Centers’ ACIS service, one station query per town (linked in the table), 2026-09-28.

The full method, including how we read the tiles, is on the method page.