When I set out to build Slopes in 2013, I had a ton of ideas that I knew I'd only be able to pull off if I ever got lucky enough to build not just an app, but a team. Building Slopes without external funding meant it took me three years after launching to go to full-time by myself, and a couple more to lay the foundations for a team. But we've only grown (fast!) since then.
As of this season, Slopes is a team of seven full-time employees, two contractors, two interns, and me. 🤯 Everything you've seen in Slopes over the past few years around interactive resort maps is the kind of feature only an amazing team can pull off. I thought it'd be cool to start pulling back the curtain and allow others at Slopes to share the awesome stuff they've been cooking up directly with you, beginning with Jess and Lydia from our mapping team...
— Yours, Curtis aka the Slopes Guy 🌨🤞
2000+ resorts are covered by Interactive 3D Maps, so you can confidently ski the world.
Guest Writers - Lydia, Jess @Mapping Team
No matter if you're riding in Europe, North America, Australia, or Japan, on Epic, Ikon, or any other ski area, we want Slopes to be there for you wherever you go and whenever you need it.
We’ve been consistently expanding our coverage of 3D interactive maps since they were first introduced in 2021. And now, we’re kicking off this season with over 1,500 new resorts added to the list, bringing our total coverage to 2,000+ resorts across the world. About 650 of these areas feature custom Slopes mapping meticulously crafted by our team, while the rest are sourced through a special integration with OpenStreetMap (OSM).
The idea of leveraging OSM data to rapidly expand our mapping coverage was game-changing. Hand-mapping each resort is rewarding but time-intensive. By pulling in and enhancing OSM data for 1,500+ resorts, we tripled the size of our map collection, creating one of the largest sets of high-quality digital ski maps on a single platform.
If you're curious about how we develop our custom-crafted maps and why they're so time-intensive, Lydia offers a more in-depth look at the process in our blog post here.
What's Cooking Next
We're laser-focused on further enhancing the mapping experience in the upcoming releases. We've just made major backend upgrades to the mapping system, to support complex layers of information such as ropes, gates, slow zones, restricted areas, and resort points of interest.
Breckenridge Resort and Tsugaike Mountain Resort will debut these enhancements today, offering an exclusive glimpse into our future. In the coming months and seasons, we'll gradually roll out this next generation of High-Definition Maps for top resorts.
Finally... A Celebration! Join the Slopes team in Japan! 🇯🇵
Japan takes center stage this season as we expand our international support. Slopes is now the official app of Tsugaike Mountain Resort in Hakuba Valley, and we're rolling out features tailored to the Japanese market, along with exclusive Slopes Premium perks for Tsugaike Mountain visitors. If you happen to be visiting Japan, our maps now support trail names and resort info in English, in addition to Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana. Bonus, you can enjoy new Japanese-themed app icons.
To celebrate this partnership, we're planning a pow trip to Hakuba Valley from February 23rd to March 1st. Want to join our crew? We're offering a 1+1 spot on our trip to the winner of this 2024 Challenge!* More details can be found here.
Don't forget to update Slopes to the latest version and let's ski the world together!
*Open to U.S. residents only, 18+. While we aimed to make this an international challenge, legal restrictions on promotional activities and prizes in various countries forced us to limit eligibility to the territory where our company headquarters is based.
