perception that makes Vail Resorts’ new EpicMix application an intriguing release on various levels, not least for how it has the potential to push not just skiing but participation sports in general to new technological frontiers.

“EpicMix has the ability to track your physical accomplishments, similar to Nike+, and then combine it with the community experience of location-based social media, similar to applications like Gowalla,” said Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz. The app was unveiled earlier this week, and it officially launches November 5 at Keystone.

There are a number of other ski apps, and even a few launched by specific areas or resort operators, like Snowbird in Utah. But based on the demos Vail Resorts debuted this week, EpicMix goes far past those in terms of functionality. It’s the first to combine the physical performance with social media elements, and it offers a peek at what might lie in the future for participation sports.

EpicMix runs on RFID scanners at each of the 89 lifts on the five Vail Resorts mountains – Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Breckenridge, and Heavenly – that will feature the app. (For now, Arapahoe Basin is the lone holdout.)

Chips embedded in Vail’s PEAKS lift tickets or various season passes allow you to track vertical feet skiied. One nice bonus is that a liftie can scan your ticket inside your jacket – no more fishing out the pass from under two layers of clothing.

You can connect the mobile app to your accounts on Facebook and Twitter to automatically share that pic of you shredding pow or that tweet about getting first tracks. The mobile app can also find friends and family on the mountain in real-time and instant message them, meaning a possible end to the plaintive John Walton, please meet your party at first aid/ski patrol scrawls on the dry-erase board at the lift. EpicMix offers updates on trail conditions, weather, and even traffic. For fans of Foursquare and Gowalla, there are digital pins for certain achievements and milestones.

Sure, you can do all of that separately on your own, especially since ski areas like Keystone, Vail, and Beaver Creek are close to I-70 and have better cell phone coverage than some major cities. But the allure of EpicMix is that it’s all in one app, is passive (the RFID scanners automatically log your data), and doesn’t require you to buy anything other than the lift pass. The free app will be available for iPhone and Android, in addition to a web browser-based dashboard.

The big downside here is that the app only works at Vail-owned resorts. That aside, the most striking thing about EpicMix probably isn’t any single feature, as Vail Resorts hasn’t broken new ground on those. Rather, it’s the breadth of the app in general. In some respects, it’s like nothing that’s come before for participation sports.

Nike+ debuted in May of 2006, when Facebook was still restricted to .edu accounts and “social media” meant a cocktail party for TV anchors. The fresher Garmin Connect offers superlative performance tracking and interactivity with your Facebook and Twitter accounts, but is web-only, requires a Garmin device, and – ironically, for a company built on GPS – does not yet feature any location-based functions.

No one should expect that situation to exist for long. Whether it’s Nike, Garmin, or some scrappy startup, it shouldn’t be long before someone releases an all-purpose app for sports participation that will owe a large creative debt to EpicMix.

With the GPS technology on smartphones that just about everyone over the age of 12 now has, a single app could track runs, rides, peakbagging, powder days, or just about any athletic endeavor you can think of and log it all in a single, cloud-based app that could be shared on social media.

Using GPS alone, you can log distance, speed, route maps, vertical feet gained or descended, and – with Bluetooth tethering, if someone makes a Bluetooth-enabled chest strap – heart rate.

Algorithms based on speed, weight, and terrain could give you caloric expenditure or even (potentially) power output for the bike geeks. That might be a bit more performance function than most people want, and serious athletes will probably choose more serious tools. What’s driving apps like this to a broader market is likely not so much measuring every footstrike or mogul turned as much as the ability to share your experience.

Instead, take GPS-based tracking; add a dash of Twitter; a handful each of Facebook, YouTube and Flickr; and a pinch of Gowalla; and you’ve got a recipe for an all-encompassing social media app for sports.

One potential user group would be charity sports event participants, who could use the app as a central tool for raising money, keeping supporters updated on progress toward fitness and fundraising goals, and sharing their overall event experience.

Until that day, we’ve got a request for EpicMix’s first update: How about some real-time lift line info?

Photo: Vail Resorts

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Authors: Joe Lindsey

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