Pants on Fire?

A decade of flame wars on the ski.com.au forums has taught me a couple of things. Firstly, never argue with an idiot. That much should be self evident. Secondly, most arguments have been done to death, but despite this they circulate year after year after year.

There’s the old chestnuts of “Is it going to snow at Perisher at 9am on July 27th” and “OMGWTFBBQ!!!!! The lift ticket has hit $100 ZOMGGGGG!!!!!!! – This is the straw that broke the camels back, the resorts will go broke, I am never skiing in Australia again, you should all go to NZ”, but as the first snows of the year arrive, as they have this week, the perennial favourite of snow reporting will rear it’s ugly head.

We’re living in a world of webcams, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, live streaming cams (yet Channel 7 still won’t show the footy live) and for some reason the resorts still see fit to stretch the truth with snow reporting.

Today it was Mt Buller’s turn. Snow lovers across the state and country were excited. Excited to see the snow falling, and watching the guns pumping out the white stuff. Refresh the webcam, check twitter & facebook, post on the forum, get a few texts from mates on the hill & make plans for the weekend.

All this info is readily available, so Mt Buller decides to do the following (As presented on their website earlier today):

Boggy Creek

Tyrol

Family Run

Machine Made Areas 30cm

Average Snow Depth: 30cm

Now, I wasn’t the best at Maths, but it would seem to me that the average snow depth should be 0 + 0 + 0 + 30 / 4 = 7.5cm

Predictably, and thankfully, there was a mini online rebellion. Buller was called on this, which elicited a half baked excuse. I can understand her excitement, but it still doesn’t address the fundamentals. So a bit of a Facebook bash here and a Twitter flame there, it seems that they have decided to meet us half way, and quote an Average of 15cm (Totals are still 0,0,0 & 30 – go figure!)

So why the big deal you may say? What’s up with the semantics? Be happy that there’s snow!?!?!?!?!

I don’t think I need to remind anyone that snow reports are the ski world’s version of used car sales, Herald Sun political columns and BP Press Releases all rolled into one. Credibility is not their strong suit.

In the information age it’s much easier for the average punter to make an informed decision, and when they add up the numbers they’ll head to alternative means of gathering their information. Hopefully I can help out.

UPDATE:

Seems I am not alone in this opinion: http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2010/06/why_ski_resorts_cant_lie_anymore.html