Skiing Calorie Calculator: How Many Calories Does Skiing Burn?

A 75 kg skier burns roughly 400 kcal per hour of actual downhill skiing at a moderate pace, around 675 per hour skinning uphill on a touring day, and 900 or more per hour of brisk cross-country. The catch is those two words: actual skiing.

The exercise-science reference values behind every skiing calculator are defined for active time only, yet almost every calculator applies them to your whole day. A seven-hour lift-served day usually contains around three hours of actual skiing once lifts, queues and lunch are subtracted, so most calculators overstate a resort day by double. This one asks whether you're entering skiing time or a full mountain day, and adjusts the figure to match. For touring and cross-country, where you're moving nearly the whole time, your hours count in full, which is why a touring day out-burns a resort day by such a margin.

Cold, altitude and why ski days make you so hungry

Skiing stacks three appetites on top of each other: the work itself, staying warm, and altitude. That's why the mid-station stop never quite touches the sides. It's also the environment Phoenix Bars were built for: high calorie bars engineered to stay soft and easy to eat in serious cold, with up to 557 kcal in just one compact 120g bar that lives in a jacket pocket. Customers have carried Phoenix Bars to the South Pole, so a chairlift is well within their comfort zone.

If you are heading uphill under your own power, our ski touring nutrition guide covers the full day's fuelling, and for the coldest end of the sport there's our polar expedition nutrition guide. Our ranking of the best energy bars for expeditions compares bars on calories per gram and how they cope with cold.

FAQs

How many calories does a day of downhill skiing burn?
For a 75 kg skier, a typical lift-served day with about three hours of real skiing at moderate effort burns roughly 1,200 kcal from the skiing itself, before cold and altitude add their share.

Does ski touring burn more than downhill?
Considerably. Skinning uphill runs at roughly twice the burn rate of moderate downhill, and you're moving for most of the day rather than riding lifts.

Is cross-country skiing the biggest calorie burner?
Hour for hour, brisk cross-country and skate skiing sit near the top of all endurance sports, alongside hard rowing and running. Compare with our rowing calorie calculator.

Also see our rucking calorie calculator for winter load carrying, and our hiking calorie calculator, plus the swimming calorie calculator for a pool session on a rest day.

Written by James, founder of Flaming Phoenix and the maker of Phoenix Bars. Updated August 2026.