Sundance Mountain Ski Resort Just Dropped an Unreal 3D Trail Map
Last year, POWDER ran an April Fool’s story about a fake tech company trying to transform skiing into a metaverse sport. It was a stupid, thinly veiled plea to get off your phone and spend more time outside, preferably skiing.
But sometimes, technology results in an addition to skiing that’s actually really neat, like Sundance Mountain’s new interactive 3D trail map.
Now, 3D trail maps aren’t new. Lake Louise, Alberta, has one. The map Sundance created, though, with some help from Legend Guides, is on a different level. Users can pan around the resort, gaze at the surrounding mountains, and scope trails before they ride them in real life.
Check out a video demonstration of the new 3D trail map in action below. Keep reading for more.
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Based on my testing, the detail of the map varies from location to location. Generally, the trees and buildings are a bit blobby. But if you zoom into one of a few bubbles on the map, everything comes into sharper, stunning focus. I spent a little hanging out at the top of Sundance’s Flathead lift, marveling at the view.
The map is one of several created by Legend Guides and is joined by Snowbird and Powder Mountain, Utah. The product’s website also includes 3D map demos of a golf course and Pine Meadows Ranch, an estate. They’re equally fun to poke around in—one word of warning, though, your phone or computer might struggle to load them. Mine did, at least.
Painted trail maps, of course, are a fiercely lionized bit of ski culture. The work of James Niehues and his protege, Rad Smith, conjures fond memories and, unlike a digital map, exists in physical space. Fishing a slightly soggy trail map out of your pocket on the mountain is a tradition that, hopefully, isn’t going anywhere.
But for actually experiencing a mountain before a visit, a Legend Guides recreation seems to be bar none. The maps even include the option to fly over the path of a ski trail. If that gets more people excited about leaving the couch and spending a day in the mountains, we’re in.