GEOSAP Statistics

The following statistics will be calculated from the GEOSAP trail maps.

Lifts

Length (Per-lift, total)
Vertical drop (Per-lift, total)
Capacity
These could be combined to get statistics that would indicate the quality of the whole lift system

Trails

Mileage (per-trail, total)
Pitch (per-trail, min/max/avg of each difficulty, steepest/longest section within a trail, aka "headwall")
Width: difficulty rating could be factored according to trail width. This would not apply if the slope were so shallow that turning would not be necessary, and the factor would be phased out as trail width increases to the point that it no longer limits the ability to turn.
Acreage (per-trail, total)
Number of crossings
Worst traverse (portion too flat to sustain forward motion): longer and less-steep is worse, though it can be offset by a significant preceding slope.
Direction: slope face relative to sun angle, prevailing winds, and wind blocks could be used to predict which slopes have the best conditions, or what areas to hit early in the day vs. those that will stay in good shape later in the day.

Boundaries

In-bound area (total): ratio of in-bound area to skiable acreage would give a good idea of how crowded an area might feel.

Temporal Stats

It may be possible to update what trails are open on a regular basis, enabling time-based plots of which resorts are opening fastest/slowest and which have the most and/or best terrain open. It also might be possible to denote how the trail map changed over the years, enabling time-based plots of ski area expansion.

Other Outputs

Might it be possible to have the completed areas might rival James Niehues' maps? Maybe a plug-in could turn the trail area white, with the centerlines overlaid. Doing this manually for Sunday River, ME produced good results: SundayRiver_white_trails.png

Another potential use would be to take a logging GPS (such as the i-Blue 747) with you skiing, then combine this data with the trail map so you could automatically figure out whether you skiied all the trails at an area, how much time you spent on trails of each difficulty level etc.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License