Vail, CO – If you don’t know what the Epic Mix Technology is, let me explain, it’s the way ski areas track the amount of time you spend on the slopes, which lifts you ride, who you ski with and how many days you ski each season as well as how long you spend on the slopes in any giving day. Sounds complicated and impersonal right, well the mountains have been tracking this information for sometime and Vail Resorts is the first to roll out this program and attempt to tie it to social networking via Facebook and Twitter, the name of there version is called Epic Mix. Not everyone is a fan, but regardless if you like it or not this is the future or the present of skiing and the electronic age. I decided to log into and set up my Epic Mix account to see what the buzz is all about, the way it work is you get awards called Buttonsfor various achievements you have accomplished throughout the season. You also gain points for the amount of vertical feet you have skied or ridden. Not to be confused your season pass does not have a GPS device in it, the way EpicMix works is it scans you each time you load onto a ski lift, it then calculates the vertical feet you have traveled between lifts. I both like and dislike elements of the Epic Mix program so far, I will explain these further. The Mountain Weekly’s editor Mike Hardaker was interviewed by Forbes Magazine about an article he wrote about Epic Mix, to see his article Vail Epic Mix Program Tracks Skiers .
Things I like about Epic Mix, I enjoy seeing how many vertical feet I average in a day, and I also like to see how many lifts I average in a day as well. I also am able to see when my friends that are also logged into Epic Mix are on the mountain. I can do this through Facebook, not all my FB friends are logged into Epic Mix; only small portions have chose to log into Epic Mix. Most of my friends don’t care to join into the program, as it is not vital to their skiing experience. I like that you can see where you rate against other skiers and snowboarders who are logged into the Epic Mix program, I am currently in the 97th Percentile, with just under 450,000 vertical feet. This is all interesting, in the past I have kept track of the days I have spent on the ski hills, but never tracked my vertical feet. I know people who went out of their way to do that, but it always seemed like too much work for me, this allows me to track passively.
Some of the things I don’t really like about Epic Mix, I notice that I tend to check my account while on the ski hill to see if I have acquired any achievements. I would rather get away from technologies while skiing and snowboarding, and enjoy the beauty of the moment as well as the serenity of the mountains. I even found myself going out of my way to ride certain lifts to receive a pin or two; these are not routes I might have skied otherwise. Epic Mix also prematurely awards pins for vertical feet, I don’t understand this. My understanding is women don’t like premature celebration or so I have heard. I also have been to several other ski areas and have been giving lift tickets prior to acquiring my season pass. I think if Epic Mix is going to replace the calendar I use to collect me ski data, that I should be able to use it as my digital calendar. I understand Vail Resorts may not want to track that I went to Loveland, Wolf Creek, or Jackson Hole, but if they truly want to understand my skiing habits, this is valuable data that the current Epic Mix models is not providing them or myself. I have 24 days of skiing not counted on my EpicMix account some of those at mountains owned by Vail Resorts and many that are not. Sure Vail can not track the lifts I ski at other areas, but I would like the option to manually add that I skied opening day at Loveland for instance, or made a trip to Wolf Creek, or attended the X Games and went skiing while in Aspen.
I am not going to get into the whole Epic Mix is big brother, but I wonder if there is any effect to going under a radio scanner multiple times a day for many days over many years. Food for thought, I prefer organic food, to fast food and also want my skiing experience to be organic as well. I also have had some issues with friends showing up on my Epic Mix friends page, some that I have no idea who they are, and others saying they joined but they didn’t show up on my friends page. You cannot add friends like you would with Facebook or other social networking sites.
Some other interesting things about Epic Mix, they have developed Apps for the iPhone and Droid platforms, which are said to be interesting. Some of the hardest pins to achieve are the Steve Austin Pin: for skiing more that 6,000,000 vertical feet in a season.
Smorgasbord: for skiing, Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Heavenly all in the same season.
The Tour da Force: for skiing over 100 days in a season. I have only been involved with Epic Mix for a month and will do a follow up article at the end of the season with my assessment for the season. If you have any views on the Epic Mix or have used it, I would love to hear your feelings on this. The Epic Mix is still in Beta testing and I am sure they will attempt to make the program run better for future ski seasons.
Do you ski with the EpicMix program turned on?
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