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It was a party night at Sugar Bowl, California, and marketing manager Kristin York went for a night out. As the time closed in on 1 a.m., she thought of the snow report she was scheduled to do in just a few hours and looked at a fellow employee.

“Think I can just do it from home?” she asked. “Oh yeah,” he said, supporting her slightly-warped perception of the weather outside. “It’s going to be great tomorrow.”

York filed the report based on what she saw at that moment, feeding right into the stereotype of what the world has long thought snow reporters do. But three hours later, she paid the price—“It started raining, and I knew I had no choice but to do it over again,” she says. She dragged her tired body out of bed, headed out to the mountain and started from scratch—luckily, before her original report ever appeared. Lesson learned.

In this era of cyber world domination, ski resorts can no longer rest on inaccurate or even average snow reporting. While skiers used to dial into the snow line once a week, skiers are now clicking on their favorite resort’s website over and over; looking for changes, comparing to other mountains and yes, putting their immediate faith in what they read. And while it used to be enough to type out the basics and throw in a few superlatives and hyperboles, snow reports, the most organic and visited spot on most resort websites, now need to be much more than that.

They need to entertain, entice and build trust. Ballpark is no longer an option. It may be safe to say the snow reporter’s interaction with the public is as important as any employee’s. York says the role the Internet plays in building clientele increases almost daily.

“We are seeing exponential growth in the visits to our website,” she says. “We saw a twenty percent growth in visits just this past March alone. People want to know what’s going on and they want to know up-to-the-minute. The Web is giving them that opportunity. Our challenge, and what we’ve learned, is we definitely need to be completely honest. People get really angry if they base their decision on your report and then you were wrong. So we stay honest. We use the “R” word. It’s a slow, painful way to develop clients, but it’s the right way, and people do appreciate it.”

In other words, the Internet is making an honest business of us.

Industry insider Skip King, who’s worked just about every job there is in skiing and now serves as a resort communications consultant, points out that the job of snow reporting may be the toughest balancing act in the biz.

“The Web is the great equalizer in all of this. The Web has forced a degree of honesty on snow reporting that once wasn’t there. There are still issues, of course,” he says. “The two banes of a snow reporter’s existence are owners who don’t understand that you can’t fool people with snow reports, particularly nowadays, and customers who don’t understand that a foot of snow this morning will settle to eight or nine inches by tomorrow morning, or might have blown off altogether, and who thence call you a liar. God knows I got my share of earfuls from both.”

At Wildcat Mountain, N.H., conditions can change by the hour, and resort marketing communications director Irene Donnell knows well the importance of what her snow report says. “People tell me they look at it every single day; that they bookmark it,” she says. “It’s their way of stopping in even if they cannot get here at that moment. So we have to realize that with it, we are doing more than reporting the snow. It’s become part of the image of the mountain that we are putting out there.” For that reason, Donnell works hard to craft the wording of her daily report; using alliteration and creativity in an inspirational yet honest way. For example, on February 5 last season, the daily report read: “We expect spring conditions for today, softer wet snow! It’s about 38F from top to bottom this morning, light drizzle, low clouds, light breeze here in the Notch. Wear waterproof clothing and enjoy the forgiveness of soft snow! We have had 18” of snow over the past 10 days so the cover is nice.”


Finding a Snow Reporter
While the goal is to keep clients happy with accurate information, what about the person on the other end? At Okemo Mountain, Vt., the area has found ways to keep a low-paid snow reporter happy, motivated and really into his job.

“That’s the whole key: Keep them happy,” says PR manager Bonnie MacPherson. That means finding value in more than just the low-end paycheck. “We try to offer them autonomy; to get them to take pride in what they are doing. We always look to show them positive feedback, and reinforcement in what they are doing.” They have also empowered the snow reporter with the job of being their eyes and ears across the World Wide Web, having them monitor and contribute to blogs that talk about ski resorts in general.

They also, like other areas, have learned to show their snow reporters how to have fun with the work. The idea, says Donnell, is to give Web browsers a sense of personality—resorts want Web visitors to come to know, love and trust their snow reporters. “People start to know the style of certain reporters and interpret it,” says Donnell. “That comes with time and good, interesting reporting.”

York, for example, always tries to reference some historic moment or tidbit with each snow report, like this one: “Mother Nature’s loading up a beauty here with 6 to 10 inches of fresh delicious sugar filling up our bowl overnight. This will make for some soft landings for our Big Air Comp in the Half Pipe today. That’s right, join us as we test Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of terrestrial gravity, whereby an object that falls to earth at a rate of 16 feet per second represents the same force in which the moon is retained in the orbit about the earth.”

“We talk a lot (to our snow reporters) about being high tech but high touch,” says MacPherson. “You really want the readers to feel that you are reaching out to them and actually talking to them.”

The Web, too, has demanded more of snow reporters. Many resorts like Sugar Bowl and Wildcat now update snow reports throughout the day, pleasing consumers who now expect up-to-the-moment information from everywhere. This puts more pressure on the reporter, but also, they say, gives the reporter a real sense of belonging in the organization.

OK, so, that’s all good and nice, but for just about minimum wage?

“It’s a great question, and one we are dedicated to finding the answer to,” says York, who shares the snow reporting responsibilities with a fellow staffer. One thing her mountain is doing is offering reporters the chance to be on the cutting edge. “The Web is so huge now. I mean think about it: four years ago it was pretty much non-existent. Now it’s a revolution to be sure. So we are working toward the future, and that should excite our employees. Things like interactive Web cams. Helmet cams of runs you can see by clicking on a trail on the on-line trail map. All that is exciting, hopefully, to those who do all this.”

In some cases, getting the respect the job deserves is more hands-on. Take Donnell, who used to shoulder the snow reporter’s job all on her own. “There were times when I didn’t have any help at all,” she says. “And then one day I had to leave to go somewhere and the general manager had to do it. After he did it once, there was a new appreciation for it.”

King believes that despite the historically low pay and the now even more challenging role, the position can be filled and filled well. “So as long as you deliberately search for such an individual, you will find them,” King says. “Because pay notwithstanding, it’s probably the coolest entry-level gig going at a ski area.”



Mixing Fact With Fiction
Yes, it’s possible to be both entertaining and informative at the same time, as this web snow report for Okemo on April 1 shows:

“Good morning skiers and riders!

It may be spring, but here at Okemo, winter never slows down! After Mother Nature dumped loads of snow on us last night, we’re waking up to bluebird skies this morning, with another three feet of snow in the forecast tonight! And we’ve got a special treat for you thrill-seekers out there—the new chutes off the back side of the mountain are now open, along with our new backcountry heli-skiing service! Also, be aware of extreme conditions on Buckhorn, where Ski Patrol is out this morning, digging their pits and testing the snowpack for avalanches…

And in case you haven’t looked at the calendar, it’s APRIL FOOL’S DAY! We had you there for a second, didn’t we? Probably not…But that’s OK, too. In any case, we’ll be skiing and riding on 71 trails today, with 13 lifts heading for the summit starting at 8 a.m. sharp. Current surfaces are loose granular and spring conditions over a 16- to 24-inch base. And with plenty of bumps, cruisers, gentle beginner terrain, and of course big air in our terrain parks and the SoBe Superpipe (which was cut last night—no fooling!), all spread out across 415 acres and almost 26 miles of terrain, there’s something out there for everyone today!”