Vail Resorts: Staying Connected
No more fumbling for your lift ticket when you ski at one of the five Vail Resorts: Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Heavenly. Whether you buy a day or season's pass, your lift ticket is actually a smart card loaded with possibilities. For a start, when you're about to hop on a chair, just point to the pocket where you're keeping your lift ticket and it will be scanned. (It works because radio frequency technology is installed at each of the resort's 89 lifts across five mountains. Radio frequency chips are also embedded in ski passes and lift tickets.) All you have to do to record your activity and connect with friends is ski or snowboard as usual and then use your smart phone or your computer to access the web. Simply log on to the Vail Resorts EpicMix.com and access your account online, Then decide if you want to share your activities with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
Here's one great advantage of the new technology. Let's say you are skiing on Breckenridge's Imperial Express chair or in Vail's back bowls and you want to meet up with friends for the next run. They will know where you are just by checking their smart phones. No need to text or bother with a phone call. The beauty of the new EpicMix system is that it is real time information so you and your friends will know exactly which lift each of you are taking. And if you're a parent, no surprises. The site will keep you up-to-the-second, informing you if your kids are on the bunny hill, skipping ski school and perhaps sipping cocoa in a lodge, During the day or even when you get home, you can log on to the site and find out exactly how many double black diamond trails you skied, the vertical feet for the day or during your ski holiday and then post to share with friends. A big draw for kids--big and small-- is that they can earn a series of digital pins. Vail Resorts is even considering actual pins to clip on to parkas, testimonies to accomplishments and milestones during a Vail Resorts ski vacation . Details at http://news.vailresorts.com.
