How to Track and Customise Skiing and Snowboarding Workouts on Apple Watch

Hitting mountain ski resorts for alpine skiing or snowboarding involves alternating repeatedly between high-speed downhill descents and slow chairlift or gondola ascents. In the past, winter sports enthusiasts had to rely on specialized third-party ski tracking apps or bulky GPS watches to monitor their mountain performance. Apple incorporates native, sophisticated telemetry for Downhill Snow Sports directly into the watchOS Workout app, transforming your Apple Watch into a dedicated mountain computer.

Leveraging high-precision dual-frequency GPS, barometric altimeters, and motion coprocessors, Apple Watch automatically distinguishes between active downhill skiing and stationary chairlift rides. It calculates your individual ski run count, maximum speed, total vertical descent, and slope distance without counting chairlift elevation gains toward your exercise totals. In this guide, you will learn how to configure and track skiing and snowboarding workouts on Apple Watch, customize metrics, and analyze your runs in the Fitness app.

Key Metrics Tracked During Alpine Ski and Snowboard Workouts

The native Apple Watch snow sports profile delivers comprehensive mountain telemetry:

• Automatic Run Detection: Records telemetry exclusively during downhill runs. Automatically pauses metric accumulation when you stop at the lodge or board a ski lift.
• Vertical Descent: Measures cumulative elevation lost exclusively during downhill skiing (omitting lift ascent meters).
• Maximum and Average Velocity: Captures peak velocity reached on groomed pistes and off-piste trails.
• Run Split Counts: Tallies total individual downhill runs completed across the ski day.
• Water Lock & Glove Compatibility: Automatically engages Water Lock to prevent snow spray from triggering touchscreen gestures.

Step 1: Setting Up a Downhill Snow Sport Workout

Before catching your first ski lift in the morning, launch the workout on your watch:

1. Press the Digital Crown and open the Workout app on your Apple Watch.
2. Scroll down and select Downhill Skiing or Snowboarding. (If you do not see it on the main list, scroll to the bottom, tap Add Workout, and select it from the catalog).
3. Tap the More button (•••) in the top-right corner of the workout card to review options:
   • Set an Open Workout for unconstrained all-day tracking.
   • Configure a custom goal based on Total Calories, Time, or Vertical Descent (e.g. tracking towards a 5,000-metre vertical descent target).
4. Tap the workout tile to begin. A 3-second countdown initiates, and Water Lock automatically activates (indicated by a blue water droplet icon at the top of the screen).

Step 2: Customising Skiing Workout Views and Metric Dashboards

You can tailor what metrics appear on your watch display while carving down slopes:

1. Open the Watch app on your paired iPhone and tap Workout.
2. Tap Workout Views.
3. Select Downhill Skiing (or Snowboarding) and tap Edit Views.
4. Enable and arrange your preferred metrics:
   • Current Speed and Max Speed: Monitor how fast you are traveling in real time.
   • Elevation and Descent: Track your current altitude and cumulative downhill meters.
   • Heart Rate Zones: Monitor cardiovascular strain during intense moguls or powder runs.
   • Current Run Number: Keep track of how many runs you have completed throughout the morning.

Step 3: Managing Your Workout on the Slopes

Because ski gloves prevent capacitive touchscreen input, Apple Watch allows you to control snow workouts via physical buttons:

• Pausing for Lunch at the Lodge: Press the Side button and Digital Crown simultaneously to pause your workout without taking off your ski gloves. Press both buttons again when heading back out.
• Action Button Control (Apple Watch Ultra): Configure the orange Action button under Settings > Action Button > Workout to automatically pause/resume or mark segment splits with a single gloved press.
• Disengaging Water Lock: When your ski day is finished, press and hold the Digital Crown until the watch sounds a tone and clears water droplets from the speaker acoustic chamber.
• Ending the Workout: Swipe right and tap End (X) to finalize your mountain session.

Reviewing Downhill Run Analytics in the Fitness App on iPhone

After your ski day, your iPhone provides a rich, visual breakdown of your performance:

1. Open the Fitness app on your iPhone and tap your completed ski workout under History.
2. View total duration, active calories, and overall elevation loss.
3. Scroll down to the Runs breakdown: inspect each individual run numbered chronologically, showing exact start time, duration, top speed, and vertical drop.
4. Tap the Interactive Route Map to inspect a satellite GPS overlay color-coded by speed across each trail on the mountain.