Our ski season has drawn to a close, which is bittersweet. I am thrilled that we had such great timing for our couple of months in Colorado. A few weeks before we got to Breck, the resort and all of its peers in Summit and Eagle county were really struggling. Then, it all switched and the snow starting coming in amazing quantities. It did not stop until we left, with Breck actually re-opening last weekend because it was in such stellar condition from all the spring snow. On the last day of the season, we closed out the best parts of the mountain with some great friends and finally, finally the spring skiing we had anticipated.
One tech tool that made my time on the mountain more enjoyable and engaging was a Vail Resorts app called EpicMix. This app is tied to each season pass and ticket on the mountain, and is used by skiers/riders to track their daily ski performance, store their pics in one place and allow people to connect with their friends and family around a shared interest. I have to confess to firing up the ipad every ski day within 5 minutes of walking in the door, to see how i did in vertical that day. Did i break 20k, what about 25k? It was amusing how those numbers drove my impressions of the specific ski day.
EpicMix was started 3 years ago and i was openly mocking of its purpose. The app works by a unique radio frequency (RF) locator tagged to each ski pass, which is then logged at each lift on the mountain. Then, as with so many other developments in our modern life, i was full borne addicted within about a month. Of course, the app has gotten markedly better over the last years, with fewer false positives and negatives and hence a truer result. That increased accuracy has made it easier to trust the results, which is key for any performance data set.
I can happily report that all three of the purposes of the app have proven true in my experience. When we got back from traveling, one of the first things i did was check out our buddies' EpicMix from Tahoe, to see how their ski season was going. After i put in a string of 7 days skiing in a row and really kickstarted my season, i was getting messages and emails from those same buddies, commenting admirably on my initial burst of skiing. This connection over our shared love is exactly why i enjoy the social function of the app, it brings us together without any overt push or pull.
Furthermore, the tracking of my skiing has been a motivator, giving me a little extra incentive to keep skiing on days when i might have been dragging. I have had great runs at the end of the day as a results, memories i very easily might have missed had i called it quits when my toe were cold or the snow seemed less than perfect.
My season: below is a summary of my season, one i am quite happy with overall.
162.4 miles (54% of the Earth's atmosphere)
20,420 feet: average ski day
49 days on the mountains, 42 on EpicMix
Top single day: 37,296 vertical feet at Beaver Creek
Most frequent resort: Breck
Daily summary: here is an example of a daily report, this is for the last day of the season. You can see it captures the vertical feet (this is the number i track closely) and some other data points.
Lifetime summary: here is a lifetime summary for the last 3 years of skiing at Vail mt resorts that have the RF technology. I am stunned by the total lifts for the 94 days, 1,395 total and an average of about 15 a ski day.
Pics: lastly, here is sample picture from one of the photographers on the mountain. All of the pics from this and the past 3 seasons live in the app, with cool shots from our tahoe ski house, skiing with my lovely wife, my dad and sister and others.
One tech tool that made my time on the mountain more enjoyable and engaging was a Vail Resorts app called EpicMix. This app is tied to each season pass and ticket on the mountain, and is used by skiers/riders to track their daily ski performance, store their pics in one place and allow people to connect with their friends and family around a shared interest. I have to confess to firing up the ipad every ski day within 5 minutes of walking in the door, to see how i did in vertical that day. Did i break 20k, what about 25k? It was amusing how those numbers drove my impressions of the specific ski day.
EpicMix was started 3 years ago and i was openly mocking of its purpose. The app works by a unique radio frequency (RF) locator tagged to each ski pass, which is then logged at each lift on the mountain. Then, as with so many other developments in our modern life, i was full borne addicted within about a month. Of course, the app has gotten markedly better over the last years, with fewer false positives and negatives and hence a truer result. That increased accuracy has made it easier to trust the results, which is key for any performance data set.
I can happily report that all three of the purposes of the app have proven true in my experience. When we got back from traveling, one of the first things i did was check out our buddies' EpicMix from Tahoe, to see how their ski season was going. After i put in a string of 7 days skiing in a row and really kickstarted my season, i was getting messages and emails from those same buddies, commenting admirably on my initial burst of skiing. This connection over our shared love is exactly why i enjoy the social function of the app, it brings us together without any overt push or pull.
Furthermore, the tracking of my skiing has been a motivator, giving me a little extra incentive to keep skiing on days when i might have been dragging. I have had great runs at the end of the day as a results, memories i very easily might have missed had i called it quits when my toe were cold or the snow seemed less than perfect.
My season: below is a summary of my season, one i am quite happy with overall.
20,420 feet: average ski day
49 days on the mountains, 42 on EpicMix
Top single day: 37,296 vertical feet at Beaver Creek
Most frequent resort: Breck
Daily summary: here is an example of a daily report, this is for the last day of the season. You can see it captures the vertical feet (this is the number i track closely) and some other data points.
Lifetime summary: here is a lifetime summary for the last 3 years of skiing at Vail mt resorts that have the RF technology. I am stunned by the total lifts for the 94 days, 1,395 total and an average of about 15 a ski day.
Pics: lastly, here is sample picture from one of the photographers on the mountain. All of the pics from this and the past 3 seasons live in the app, with cool shots from our tahoe ski house, skiing with my lovely wife, my dad and sister and others.
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