» Can iPhones keep ski areas honest about snowfall totals? :: Granite Geek

Jan292010

Can iPhones keep ski areas honest about snowfall totals?

Filed under Telecommunications by david brooks at 3:53 pm

Smartphone-toting skiers who find less snow at a ski report than expected can use phone cameras and wireless networks to complain to their buddies. This new transparency might force ski areas to be more honest, or so says Salon in this report, based on part on a study last month by two Dartmouth professors that got a lot of press.

The professors found (gasp!) that ski reports exaggerate their snowfall totals. More tellingly, they found that the difference between mountain reports and official tallies at the closest weather station was greater on weekends or holidays. But they also believe that this difference was less in places with cellphone connections that allow the use of an iPhone app for reporting real-time ski conditions.

Hey, this is the East Coast: I *expect* to scrape my skis over ice at least part of the time. Powder is for imps!

Tags: skiing