If you look at a snow report and have ever wondered if the ski resort propaganda machine is in full swing, then you are probably right… sometimes.

Snow Report TV was founded on the fact that we didn’t entirely believe everything that we saw about ski resorts releasing their own snow reports, so I guess we were always skeptical.

However…

There are a few things that we have learned about how a resort reports and here are some tips as to how you can correctly translate “resort speak” to better understand how the resort is looking.

Why has snow reporting improved?

This one is easy. Snow reporting has become much more honest with the internet and more recently, the rise of social media.

Surprisingly, resorts still drive their own social media presence which is something we are very surprised about. People still seem willing to accept a resort report over joining a group with more honest reports of conditions. Maybe sometimes you just want to look at it through rose colored glasses? Maybe you’d rather trick yourself to believing that every day on the mountain is awesome and your job sucks. Maybe it justifies your existence and why you hate your job so much?

Either way, the general public (you and I) can still keep a resort accountable and call “bull s#it” when we see something that doesn’t add up and you better believe resorts get called out all the time.

So the good news is that this forces resorts to be more honest with their reporting.

The bad old days

Before resorts became accountable on social media, I know that I became increasingly frustrated with reports that proclaimed snowfall totals and conditions, only to arrive at the mountain and realise it was a gross exaggeration, or wasn’t exactly telling the entire truth. Sometimes they weren’t even lying. They just didn’t give you the full picture. Like trying to sell a car, you tell someone about how well it runs and how it is hard to let go, not the $3000 bill you just got from the mechanic that you don’t want to pay and are trying to offload it.

We even make fun of understanding resort reports on our about page. In the past, this wasn’t a joke. It’s just how resort reporting was.

In the past, snowfall readings were taken from locations that resorts knew would benefit from wind drifting and other factors and negatives (ice, wind etc) were conveniently overlooked. It was just really misleading.

And today?

The main reason this has changed is due to snow stakes. They simply don’t lie… much.

A quick look at snow levels, the snow stake and a good local weather report like OpenSnow should give you most of the information you need to best understand how good (or not so good) it is out on the hill.

And be sure to sure your honest experiences. I know we all lie about our lives on social media to make us look good, but it will seriously help people if they know what to expect when heading to the mountain.

What do you think? Do you have stories of resorts mis-reporting conditions? Let us know in the comments!