This document analyzes the average sustained speeds of skiers and snowboarders at ski hills across Ontario. It used data collected from the Trace Snow GPS application to determine the top 5 sustained speeds at each hill, which were then averaged. The results showed that the fastest average speed was 89 km/h at Georgian Peaks, while the slowest was 37.08 km/h at Dagmar. A kernel density map indicated a concentration of high speeds in the Collingwood area.

1. SKIERS & SNOWBOARDERS AVERAGE SUSTAINED
SPEED ON ONTARIO’S SKI HILLS
Jessica Hutzelmann ● Renat Mamine ● Bachelor of Arts ● Geographic Analysis ● Ryerson University
INTRODUCTION
Canada is a country known for its long, harsh winters where
daylight is shortened and temperatures drop well below the
freezing point. The winter season is dreaded by many, who
avoid the outdoors at all costs until the snow begins to melt from
the spring temperatures. However, those that ski and snowboard
anxiously wait for the first snowfall of the year so they can hit
the slopes until the end of the season.
The area of analysis for this project is skill hills in Ontario.
Specifically, the purpose is to perform a comparative assessment
of the sustained speeds achieved by skiers and snowboarders at
each hill throughout Ontario. Recent advances in technology has
led to devices that support wireless GPS applications. Specifical-
ly, the free application ‘Trace Snow’, supported by IPhone and
Android uses a GPS system to calculate and map users skiing/
snowboarding statistics internationally.
Overall, this process will produce a visual representation that
displays ski hills that have the fastest skiers/snowboarders versus
ski hills that have the slowest skiers/snowboarders. Furthermore,
utilization of the kernel density tool produces a visual represen-
tation that displays ‘hot spots’ or areas that have a high distribu-
tion of the fastest skiers/snowboarders in Ontario.
METHODOLOGY
Average sustained speed measures how well one can travel at
a high speed on a ski hill. It is measured by breaking up visits into
10 second increments and takes the overall maximum of those min-
imums (Trace Snow, 2015).
The ski hills chosen are both public and private. Through Ski
Central their location and addresses are extracted for geocoding
purposes. Using the Trace Snow Application, the top 5 sustained
speeds of skiers/snowboarders for each hill are gathered. Those
top 5 speeds are added together and divided by 5 to get the av-
erage. An excel spreadsheet is utilized containing columns with
headings of Ski Hills, Address, City, Province, Country and Average
Sustained Speed. Appropriate attributes are inputted under each
column and it is geocoded. Next, a boundary file for Canada is
obtained from Stats Can and uploaded to the ArcMap project. The
ski hill points are changed to graduated colour symbols in propor-
tion to top average sustained speed. Secondly, for greater effect,
the graduated colour symbols are manually sized in accordance to
the average sustained speed.
Overall, darker hues and a larger symbols represent a higher
average sustained speed and vice versa. The colour scheme uti-
lized is appropriate for the winter theme. An additional dot densi-
ty map is developed to see the topographic locations of each hill
and visualize the distribution of ski hills throughout Ontario. Lastly,
a Kernel Density map is created to visualize the ‘hot spots’ where
there is a large concentration of high average sustained speeds in
Ontario.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
There is a high concentration of ski hills in south central Ontar-
io just north of the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area. There is a
lower number of ski hills in the northern part of Ontario. In total
there are 23 public and private ski hills. The map of average
sustained speed reveals that there is a cluster of the top speeds
within the extended boundaries of the golden horseshoe. The
fastest average sustained speed achieved is at Georgian Peaks
at 89 km/h. The lowest average sustained speed is at Dagmar
at 37.08 km/h. There are 10 ski hills that fall within the top two
classifications. They are as follows:
The kernel density/hot spot map shows that there is a concentra-
tion of high average sustained speeds in the Collingwood area.
REFERENCES
2011 Census - Boundary files. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/bound-limit/bound-limit-2011-eng.cfm
SkiCentral - The #1 Search Site for Skiing and Snowboarding. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://skicentral.com/
Trace. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://snow.traceup.com/landing
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Average Sustained Speed (km/h)