I’m addicted to ski areas. No sense trying to hide it the fact. On road trips, I can’t help but check the atlas for resorts to stop at along the way. When I lived in central New York, I spent the morning of my birthday exploring all the local hills: Song Mountain, Toggenburg, Labrador, Four Seasons. I wasn’t raised on skiing, I decided I wanted to start during a poor spot in my family’s history which meant every time I could score a lift ticket it was special. The cool part? It still is.

There are certain things about ski resorts that are, for lack of better works, magical in the way they work. When building content, having the intrigue factor is a great way to both gain attention and hold it. Here are five of those, “I wonder how that works” elements that I believe every resort should be making content about.

Ski Lifts & Construction
This one might take the cake, and what better time to cover it than summer when the helicopters and crews come out to play. Even after thousands of lift rides the way lifts work still amazes me. I’ve seen a few of these around, but I’d love to see more. I think showing pictures of lift construction progress are great, but these are just the tip of the iceberg. Video is the name of the game here. It’s an amazing process to watch.

Snowmaking Science
Heavenly created a series about their snowmakers that’s pretty tough to beat but that shouldn’t dissuade you from doing some coverage of your own. During October, November, and December you resort is likely coordinating a massive effort to crank out the white stuff. Don’t miss that chance to show your skiers some behind-the-scenes goods.

What it Takes to Open
Resorts are already counting down the days before the lifts start turning, now might be the perfect time to start a series called, “Opening [resort name] – The Countdown” where a weekly video highlights exactly what needs to happen to get the resort open. From lift inspection and hiring staff, to selling passes and making snow, this is one that would not only be fun to watch, but would certainly build some early season buzz as well.

Terrain Park Construction
I still am amazed by the perfectly smooth sides of jumps that parks are building these days. Red Bull’s cubed pipe at Squaw Valley blew my mind and illustrates my point perfectly. If the boys from SPT come out to your resort, grab a camera.

The Unsung Heroes of the Resort
I’m talking about the snow reporter that is up at 4am to get reports ready before he goes to school, the cooks in the kitchen who fry corndogs all day, cat operators who groom their nights away – all those people who make the resort run each day but never get any love. It’s fun to learn about all the work that goes into opening the hill for business day in and day out.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.