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Ski Report Accuracy, Nothing New Here…but Who Will Change It?

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October 12th, 2012By: Gregg Blanchard

This week I’ll be on my first week-long vacation in…well, I honestly can’t remember the last one I took. Among other things, I hope to spend some time on one of my favorite activities: finding lost ski areas. I absolutely love ski history, and with that topic on the brain, I thought I’d take this week to look back at some old-school marketing and see what we learn.

Let me walk you through my mental flow when I see a snow report for a mountain I’m planning to ride that day. Typically it goes something like this.

“Okay 10 inches, so probably more like 6 around most of mountain, maybe 4 at the bottom. If I hit the ____ trees maybe there will be a bit left over from the last storm that will make it feel more like 10. Of course, that saddle sometimes get some wind blown stuff and it might be closer to 10 up there…”

In other words, I rarely trust a snow report because the experience of having my expectations met is rare. And this is nothing new, just take a look at this print ad from Mt Abram in 1985.

And the fact that they added it as a selling point to their ad tells me the issue had been around much longer than that and was already widespread.

The Lesson
The lesson is simply this: skiers don’t trust snow reports. “Duh, Gregg, now shut up already…I’ve got my Twitter feed to check too this morning.” Yes, but the question is, who is going to find an innovative way to get that trust back?

We’re better content creators than we may have ever been, yet skiers don’t trust the first piece of content we publish every day.

Naivete
Call me naive, but if my phone alone has enough technology to take my pulse by putting my fingertip on the camera, something tells me we can drum up some uber-creative way to get ski reporting on a more accurate, transparent plane.

The question now is, who is going to do it or will it stay as is forever?


  • http://www.wackytourist.com Shawn_Alain

    Revy has a webcam on a gnome, we have a webcam on a ski boot with a gnome inside it and they never lie. If they're buried in snow when you check the webcam in the morning then you know it's gonna be a good day.

  • Kevin Broderick

    The greater issue is that measuring snow depth is a hard problem. We all know that snow collects more in some places than others; I'm familiar with a resort that used to do snow depth measurements outside of the ski patrol base station, in an area that was not at all sheltered from the wind. They'd regularly report under six inches on days that skied like 6-10"…as long as you skied in the woods and on the more protected trails. A webcam gnome outside patrol would have suggested much less snow than there actually was…good for me as a local, perhaps, but not so good for the resort. On the flip side, a webcam gnome in a drift-prone area would create the "marketing ruler" effect.

    I think the best way to solve the problem would be to report a different measurement system: use boot buckles, the boot top and knees as your demarcation points. Report either "Buckle-deep" snow, "Snow depth between boot-buckle and boot-top," "Deeper than boot-top but below the knees," or "No snow report because we've gone skiing." Those demarcation points (IMO) provide a better way for skiers and riders to know what kind of powder-day experience they can expect.

    (And no, you may not use a tele skier to determine "knee-deep").

    • http://www.ericinparkcity.com Eric Hoffman

      Great points Kevin, I've seen wind cause some crazy variations in reporting and we've always taken the position of the stakes are where they are and it will balance out over time, to try to somehow average it out by storm is only going to cause more issues than it resolves.

      Then there's the whole settling issue and time issue – do you report every hour, every 24 hours or somewhere in between, if it's more frequent, you'll definitely see higher numbers, but 24 is the norm.

      My 2 cents on snow reporting is that resort's just need to consistent with what they're doing, be transparent as possible (as Dwight note below) and realize that you can't change Mother Nature.

  • http://coppercolorado.com Dwight Eppinger

    Copper has a webcam on our actual snowstake and a light so you can watch it snow all night. Complete transparency.

  • gratzo

    The biggest problem is that measuring snow is hard (I'm a meteorologist that only forecasts snow). For example, Vail is 5 miles end-to-end and 3,000+ft top to bottom. One number cannot possibly describe the new snow on that mountain, and this is similar for most larger ski areas.

    Consistency: yes.
    Transparency: yes.

    But there also needs to be a crowd-sourced and multiple-measurement reporting system put in place. OnTheSnow.com's "Ski Report" app has the "First hand reports" feature that lets users report snow, but crowd-sourced content like this is rarely useful unless well curated (for example, the usual flame war erupts in these reports between snowboards and skiers rendering the utility of the feature to be far lower than it could be).

    Locals know that 6" on the report really means 2" at the base and 12" on the best aspects higher up. But most people aren't locals. And even these rules of thumb don't always pan out due to wind, storm trajectory, etc.

    Providing one number per resort is fine since this number is syndicated worldwide. Can't get too crazy with this.

    However, resorts should embrace crowd-sourced reports as well as provide totals between lift close to lift open. Webcams with rulers that are cleared around 4pm are a great way to do this.

    If anyone would like a ruler sticker for your ski pole, we (opensnow.com) tested them last year and they work great. Put your pole in the snow, snap a picture of the snow on the ruler, share, and keep skiing. This is in place of carrying a ruler, which only obsessed meteorologists do:-)

    See the ruler sticker in action at Eldora in early February 2012. Best day I've had there with 20" of fluffy fluff. http://opensnow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/10…

    Seriously, let me know if you want a ruler sticker. We're making a ton of them for the middle of the season but may have a few samples earlier. Email me: Joel Gratz, joel@opensnow.com

    JOEL

Industry Social Snapshot

Totals and averages from all North American ski resorts' social media activity.
total views new yest mo grwth
39,927,723 0 1.26%
total fols/+1 new yest mo grwth
37,517 25 3.26%
avg score was yest 7-day
43.93 44.00 -0.38
total fols new yest mo grwth
340,026 232 2.56%
total page likes new yest mo grwth
257,589 90 0.57%

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About: Gregg Blanchard

SlopeFillers is run by marketer and skier / snowboarder, Gregg Blanchard. He loves writing in 3rd person, meeting the talented people who read this blog, pretending to be a web developer, and eating reuben sandwiches. Need more dirt on Southern Edwards, Colorado's most famous ski marketing blogger taller than 6'?
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