I check out resort web sites a bunch to see what's going on..and well rarily can find much out...but someone turned me onto a killer web site the other day...I've never heard of the place but supposedly it's fairly small but with a great terrain park...

it's called app mountain or something like that...it's way down south...I googled appterrainpark to find the site...it is by far hands down the best site their is out there...especially as far as terrainparks go...you can check out individual features, see how they are laid out, watch video of people riding/skiing them, choose a feature and see a three-d pic that rotates, and they have a web cam you can actually move around to watch people use the terrain park in real time, and lots more...

that is where it's at...as much as people are using the internet to check out resorts I'm blown away when I check out web sites for resorts...what a great media for marketing and getting info out to tons and tons of peoplw and so few resorts are really utilizing it...most resort sites are fairly laim actually...

check it out--- appmountain terrain park...I wish I could put the link up so yall could just punch it and go there..but can't figure out how to do it with this tape measure and hammer...wait maybe this screw driver will work... _ _ ps anyb_dy kn_w h_w t_ put the "_" butt_n back _n

Tucker,
Wow, what a turnaround. Maria and I used to ride in that area of NC back in the early 90s. It was mostly at Hawksnest, not much vert but it was fun and the snow was ok. Back then Appalachain didn't even allow snowboards, I was told it was the best mtn in the area, even over Sugar. Nice to see a zero to hero story. The area did have a strong boarder community, the Burton demo team would stop at Hawksnest, ride, demo, and drink all night in the bar. Burton also pickup some young gun from the area..... JJ something cant recall the name. Get this, they were doing a comp and this Jjwhatever pulled a 360 off some little bump and Burton gave him a ride, or something. Don't know what ever happened to him, I think he moved out west. I don't think it's the same JJ that rides (pro) now. Anyway nice park and story. Keith, Bryan, and I should see ya this weekend, later

That's a pretty cool website. I really like the controllable webcam.

The mother site http://www.appskimtn.com/

truly a neat little place that has a strong local rider scene and reputation for the best snow conditions. typically the last place to close in march or april with a pile of snow still on the slopes. a couple of years ago there was a dcski report on app.

In the last ice age, about 25 years ago, I was there for night skiing at 9 degrees farenheit and blistering wind. the ski patrol would only let you on the lift twice before you had to go in to warm up.

I checked that sight out again today and I am amazed..that sight is killer...they have a description and pics of their terrain park event from yesterday!!!props to apps and whoever is running that sight...you guys are on top of it...

So just out of curiosity...seems like there are a bunch of IT folks on this site...what would it cost to set up a web site like this???if you could set if up could it be more or less updated on site by someone at the resort...of course it might need some tweeking once in a while but after it is set up(format and so forth) couldn't it be updated and so fourth from the resort...What would anyone give for a bid for setting up and overseeing day to day updates for a resort for a season any problems that might arise etc...just out of curiosity of course...

I bet whatever it would cost it would be well worth it...if I had any say at a resort I would strongly recommend a web site like app has going...I bet the return would be unbelievable...but then again what do I know I'm just a nail pounder who moonlights as a bar tender...

In theory, this is not that hard. The website they are running has a custom designed front-end in Macromedia Flash or something very similar. Maybe ColdFusion? Anyhow, it'd take a dedicated person to create the front end as it'd have to be something very stylish, very fluid, and very easy to navigate. That would then plug right into the engine or the back-end of the website which is probably a CMS (Content Management System) or something similar. Having a CMS and a dedicated person to programming/tweaking that would allow for ANY resort employee to log on, punch in data at the resort, upload pictures, lastest pictures, heck have live stats! I own a web hosting business so I see this happening quiet often. I don't have the necessary GUI/front-end skills as this is more aimed at someone who is artistically inclined for websites. But any resort that puts an effort into having a top quality system can get someone who can design this.

Yes this is what I'm thinking but you explained it much better...but what about a number, a guestimate for price, a ballpark...yeah any on site employee could punch in the daily stuff(pics and reports) once the things set up... that would be the beauty of it...but what about the front-end, the back-end, what's the overhead...what would it cost for a season???I'd like to hear a price in either monitary compensation(cold hard cash), number of season passes for family and friends, or apre ski drinks...prefferably I'd like a figure for each one of those categories...

Design costs... well that varies alot depending on who the designer is, their experience, how fast they can do it, etc. A friend of mine from Nevada who is an expert at web design, charges around $1000 for a smaller site, and upwards of the $5000 range for indepth large sites. A ski resort site would be towards the smaller end of the scale. So if a web designer was doing just the GUI front end... could be around $1000-$3000 depending on how far the webdesigner went to capturing their own digital photos of terrain parks, lodges, slopes, lifts, etc. Time wise, it could get really indepth if a ski resort really wanted to capture the essence of their resort for a website.

As for the backend, there are some CMS systems that are opened source and thus absolutely free. Software packages I've seen for custom designed backends, can run also up into the $3000 or so range if not higher if a resort has a company elsewhere to do it. But lately the open source movement is gaining ground and producing amazing pieces of software free of charge. Thus if a front end developer had some coding skills, they could make some minor coding changes to tightly integrate the front end and backend for a much cheaper rate.

In my estimation, $5000 would be middle of the road for a top notch site like you showed us. Could be as low as $1000 depending on the developer and who was doing it, and could as run as high as close to $10,000 if a resort decided to custom do everything single thing. The stuff that you see that wisp and Timberline has... few hundred dollars at most. Maybe a thousand.

As for maintanence, there would hardly be any if none at all that involved the webdesigner or coders. Everything else could be taken care of by resort employees who login, input/update data, but the actual 'engine' of the website would maintain itself for the needed periods of time.