Name: Your Next Ski Vacation Will Probably Be Filled With Tech
Uploaded: 2016-04-05
Duration: 3 min 48 s
Description: One resort has drones that follow you around.

Your Next Ski Vacation Will Probably Be Filled With Tech

One resort has drones that follow you around.

Mm, yeah, it's been a good ski season here in Lake Tahoe. Unlike previous years, there's actually snow on the ground, but there's something else that's new. Increasingly, ski resorts like this one are turning to technology to enhance the customer experience and even to maintain the mountains. Yeah, mhm. Yeah, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that customers don't really get to see, like even what goes into making the snow right here. So here at North Star, we caught up with Jim Lara more the resort head of mountain operations to hear a bit more so technology, at least for snow making. We're all computerized that guns are computerized, three basic pump houses and they're all controlled from this building. Or I can control them from my phone. So we have an app that does the same thing as computer, and we can turn it on. Stark pumps, compressors, monitor guns and just guns turn to monitor Mopar more apt and for grooming. Well, grooming is a little different animals. So after we make all the snow and then we have about 15 snow cats, 14 yard, we'll see you in a minute, and they go out and push the snow and make it flat. And then skiers come out and they skate all day long, and at night we go and do the same thing over again. Yeah, mhm. Mhm. And what makes them more high tech than previous generations, previous generations to be like a little Volkswagen with a six year? And these are more like a more like a Ferrari, all computerized, just don't get it has three computers in it. They go out for 16 hours a night, and they make that beautiful corduroy you see and flatten the mountain for our guests. Plug in your iPod and you can listen to music. It has heads up display, and it has to controls on your hands and heat and heat. Yes, North Star is not the only scare resort experimenting with that that nearby Swat Valley, they've got everyone's favorite new gadget drones. Essentially, what happens here is squaw. Customers, like the other resorts that we operate at, are able to go up to the run, get filmed by drone as they make their way down the run cap and squads. Biggest obstacle is weather because when the weather doesn't cooperate, the drones can't fly when visibility is bad and the video doesn't look good and we can't safely keep track of the drone and we don't fly if there is really heavy precipitation or icing conditions, if there's really heavy winds, if those are the key limiting factors, this is about being first in place. First in this space in the Mountain Experience were one of the first scariest North America to deploy drones, capturing footage of people's ski experience. Other companies are also trying to get into the game, but are facing some regulatory obstacles to so the technology is not limited. We can shoot on anything. It doesn't matter how steep it is, how long it is, how flat it is. Whatever currently with our unprecedented regulatory permission, we're the only company in the U. S that's allowed to have its drones interact with members of the public in the U. S. You need to have licensed pilots operating service and actually controlling the drones, so we have a text to make it fully automatic. But currently we're still using pilots. We've restricted them to certain locations. We've restricted them to certain times of day, and that's basically to help see to the safety of our guests keep in mind that were in the mountain vacation business. And so I definitely see expanding the use of drones. But I can't see the day where drones are basically flying all over the mountain. I don't see that day at all, frankly.