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final project I

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Outline

High-level summary

This project will investigate how ski resorts in Colorado differ on snowfall, direct cost to visit (lift tickets or daily cost), and perceived/value metrics that combine snow and cost. I want to move beyond simple rankings and show the trade-offs a skier faces: a very snowy small hill may be cheap but have limited terrain; a premier resort may charge more but offer terrain variety and reliable snowmaking. The visualization package will let viewers answer concrete questions, such as “Where is the cheapest resort near Denver?” “Which resort has historically received the most snow?”, and explore the relationships (higher elevation means more snow, but also different price tier).

The analysis will use publicly available data where possible and link resort-level metadata (location, vertical drop, lift count) to objective snow measurements (OpenSnow / NOAA) and to price information scraped or recorded from resort or aggregator sites. Visual storytelling will start with a map and simple comparisons, then let users drill into chosen resorts and compare normalized metrics (price per vertical foot, snowfall per operating day). The narrative arc goes from orientation (map & simple facts) to insight (where good snow and low-cost overlap), to decision support (filters for travel distance, budget, and skill level).

Project structure

1. Intro & user stories
   1. “This interactive report helps skiers find Colorado resorts that maximize snow, minimize cost, or balance both.”
   2. User stories:
      • As a budget skier, I want to find resorts with the lowest daily lift cost within a 2-hour drive of Denver.
      • As a powder hunter, I want to find resorts that historically have the greatest average seasonal snowfall.
      • As a trip planner, I want to compare a few resorts on snowfall, price, and elevation so I can pick the best compromise.
2. Exploratory layer - map + filters
   1. Interactive state map with resort points sized by vertical drop and colored by a chosen metric (e.g., average snowfall, daily price).
   2. Sidebar filters (distance from a selected city, price range, snow threshold).
3. Comparative layer - charts
   1. Scatterplot: average seasonal snowfall vs. average daily lift price (points sized by skiable acres).
   2. Bar charts: cheapest vs. most expensive resorts, snowiest vs. least snowy.
   3. Matching the Mountain to the Skier. Use data on terrain difficulty (e.g., % beginner, intermediate, expert) to guide different skier types. For instance, Aspen is a haven for experts, while Buttermilk is ideal for beginners.
4. Conclusion
   1. Conclude with clear, data-backed recommendations for different user personas (e.g., “The Budget-Conscious Expert,” “The Powder-Hunting Family”). The final takeaway is that Colorado has a perfect mountain for everyone.

This is the sketch I created in class to plan my final project.

Initial sketches

1. Colorado Ski Resorts - Snow Map View
   • A state map with each resort represented as a bubble. The size of the bubble corresponds to size of the resort, and the sidebar includes filters such as drive time (e.g., within 6 hours), snwo fall amount, pass type, or price range.
   • Purpose: This sketch introduces the viewer to the overall landscape, showing where resorts are located and how snow varies across the state.
2. Seasonal Snowfall vs. Daily Lift Price Scatterplot
   • A scatterplot comparing snowfall (y-axis) and average lift ticket price (x-axis). Each point represents a resort.
   • Purpose: Useful for finding the “best value”, resorts with high snow but lower cost stand out visually as upper-left points.
3. Cheapest vs. Snowiest Resorts (Side-by-side Bar Charts)
   • Two simple ranked lists. One shows the lowest-priced resorts, the other shows the resorts with the highest average snowfall.
   • Purpose: A clean and quick way to compare rankings and contrast how resort price does not always correlate with snowfall.
4. Resort Detail Card
   • A profile layout for a single resort: elevation, vertical drop, skiable acres, and average snowfall, plus a small line chart showing 10-year snowfall history.
   • Purpose: Acts as the detail view in the final project, giving viewers context for each resort’s characteristics and performance over time.
5. “Most Valuable Resort?” Concept Illustration
   • A simple mountain sketch with symbolic markers representing resorts at different altitudes and values.
   • Purpose: This could serve as the opening visual for the story, posing the essential question (“Which resort gives the best value?”) before diving into the data.
6. Snowiest Resort? Horizontal Bars
   • A focused bar chart ranking snowfall totals.
   • Purpose: A straightforward visual that immediately communicates which resorts get the most snow.
7. Map + Comparison Panel
   • Left side: a resort map with dot markers.
   • Right side: a comparison metric block (e.g., snowfall, price, or acres) represented by a shaded chart area.
   • Purpose: Shows a two-panel layout combining geographic context with numeric comparison to help viewers interpret both spatial and metric-based information together.
8. Top 5 Ski Resorts (Rank List + Mini Chart)
   • A ranking from 1 to 5 on a chosen metric (value, snowfall, price efficiency), paired with a small thumbnail chart summarizing the metric distribution.
   • Purpose: Useful as part of the insights section, highlighting best-in-category resorts.

image generated by ChatGPT

The data

Primary Data Sources

Name	URL	Description
Colorado Ski Country USA	https://www.coloradoski.com/resorts/?utm_source=chatgpt.com	Colorado Ski Country USA list and resort pages, Wikipedia list of Colorado ski resorts for an initial roster. These give an authoritative list of resorts and basic data.
Snow and Climate Monitoring Predefined Reports and Maps	https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/data-and-reports/snow-and-climate-monitoring-predefined-reports-and-maps?utm_source=chatgpt.com	SNOTEL and NRCS provide station time series for snow water equivalent and snow depth across Colorado, they are ideal for objective, comparable historical snow metrics that can be linked to resorts via nearest-station matching.
OnTheSnow(Colorado Snow Report)	https://www.onthesnow.com/colorado/skireport?utm_source=chatgpt.com	Websites like OnTheSnow and individual resort snow report pages provide published values for recent snowfall and day-to-day conditions, useful for current season visualizations and comparison with SNOTEL historical averages.
EPIC & IKON PASS	https://www.epicpass.com/ + https://www.ikonpass.com/	Resort pricing pages (e.g., Vail, Breckenridge), ticket listings (OnTheSnow lift ticket pages), and pass providers (Epic/Ikon). For trends and comparisons, I’ll capture sample daily prices for a representative peak date and an off-peak date, and note pass coverage (Epic/Ikon). Because pricing changes yearly, I will record the date the price was checked and archive pages/screenshots.
Transportation	https://www.google.com/maps	Drive times / distance (computed with Google Maps API or distance matrix), airport proximity (for trip planning), and lodging price indices (optional) for richer trip-cost estimates.

Publicly-Accessible Datasets

Here is the Google Drive link to the draft dataset for my final project.

94-870 Telling Stories with Data_Final Project

Method and medium

For this project, I plan to create all my data visualizations in Tableau, since it allows me to build interactive maps, comparisons, and trend graphics using publicly available datasets on Colorado ski resorts. More importantly it’s very beginner friendly. As someone doesn’t have many experiences in data visualization, it would help me save a lot of times. After generating the visualizations, I will integrate them into a Shorthand story to present the project as a cohesive, scroll-based interactive experience. Shorthand will let me combine text, images, and Tableau embeds in a way that guides users through the analysis, from identifying high-value resorts to exploring snow patterns and price differences across the state. This approach follows the tools introduced in class and will allow the final deliverable to function as a standalone interactive project.

References

Colorado Snow Report, OnTheSnow. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2025, from https://www.onthesnow.com/colorado/skireport

Epic Ski & Snowboard Passes, Epic Season Pass. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2025, from https://www.epicpass.com/

Member Resorts - Official Site of Colorado Ski Country USA. (n.d.). Colorado Ski Country USA. Retrieved November 15, 2025, from https://www.coloradoski.com/resorts/

Multi-Resort Unlimited Ski/Snowboard Season Pass, Ikon Pass. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2025, from https://www.ikonpass.com/

Snow and Climate Monitoring Predefined Reports and Maps, Natural Resources Conservation Service. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2025, from https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/data-and-reports/snow-and-climate-monitoring-predefined-reports-and-maps

AI acknowledgements

• Grammar Check
• Summerizing in-class brainstorming ideas
• Polishing write-up
• GitHub coding assistance
• Initial Sketch ideas