The spatial distribution and the local amount of snow in mountainous regions strongly depend on the spatial characteristics of snowfall, snow deposition and snow redistribution. Uniform attitudinal gradients can only represent a part of these influences but are without alternative for use in larger-scale models. How well altitudinal gradients represent the true snow distribution has not been assessed. We analyse altitudinal characteristics of snow stored in two high-alpine catchments in Switzerland. Peak winter snow depths were monitored using high-resolution airborne laser scanning technology. These snow depths were transferred to snow water equivalent by applying simple density estimations. From these data, altitudinal gradients were calculated for the total catchment areas and for selected sub-areas characterized by different accumulation patterns. These gradients were then compared with gradients resulting from automated snow depth measurements obtained from several snow stations on different height levels located in the catchments, and with estimations from climatological precipitation gradients. The analysis showed that neither precipitation gradients nor flat-field stations estimate catchment-wide snow amounts accurately. While the climatological gradient showed different trends for different areas and years, the snow stations tended to overestimate mean snow amounts.