Say you鈥檙e at Squaw Valley, out with friends for a day of skiing. You somehow split from the group, and听trying to text or call your buddies听proves pointless. Nobody is checking their phones. They鈥檙e skiing, after all.
A new app called , which debuts in the iTunes store听Thursday for $2.99, aims to solve this problem. As long as you鈥檙e all using the app, the GPS-enabled software will link up with the resort鈥檚 trail map, and you can see exactly where you and your friends are in real time on the mountain. (It even tells you what percentage of the run your friends have completed.)
You can also send pre-set messages indicating meet-up points with one tap of a button. And, of course, the app听(which works on iPhones and听Apple Watches for now)听also tracks your day on the hill鈥攖otal miles skied, total runs鈥攁nd offers lift status (open, closed) and weather updates.
鈥淪kiers want to stay connected on the hill, but they don鈥檛 want to be on their phones the whole time,鈥 says Sarah Stocker, co-founder of SkiLynx, which is part of a wearable software company in the San Francisco听Bay Area called .听
SkiLynx is hardly the first app designed for skiers and snowboarders looking to record stats (apps like , , and have been doing that for a while). And it鈥檚 not the first app to track your location on the mountain, either.听, which debuted in 2011 and has over 85,000 users, already does that.
But SkiLynx takes location services a step further by overlaying you and your friends鈥 spots on a detailed resort map, which should provide particularly useful if you鈥檙e unfamiliar with the area. And unlike SnoCru, which tells you where all the SnoCru users are on the mountain鈥攚hether you鈥檙e friends with them or not鈥 SkiLynx allows you to filter so you just see your buds.
Stocker and fellow co-founder Mark Danks鈥攂oth avid skiers鈥攃ome from backgrounds in the gaming industry. Before ski apps, they created a direct-to-consumer 3D printing platform. 鈥淲e鈥檝e spent many years packaging the most complicated technology in the world to make it super easy to use,鈥 Stocker says. 鈥淲e wanted to do the same for skiers, so they can focus on the skiing.鈥
At launch, SkiLynx will only be available at ten California resorts, including Squaw, Alpine Meadows, Kirkwood, Mammoth, Northstar, Heavenly, and Sugar Bowl. It will debut in the Rockies later this winter, and Stocker says the plan is to eventually expand across North America and to Europe and Japan, too.
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