Snow Job

Who would have guessed that resorts would be less than truthful about their snow levels?

Study: Ski Resorts Tell Tall Tales About Deep Snow

Researchers at Dartmouth College have confirmed something that skiers and snowboarders have long suspected: Resorts sometimes boost their snowfall reports to attract more customers.

Eric Zitzewitz and Jon Zinman are both associate professors of economics and fans of snow sports. In their report, Wintertime for Deceptive Advertising, they found that ski areas report more snowfall on the weekends, and that there is no such "weekend effect" in government weather data.

Zinman says they gathered snowfall totals from ski area Web sites and then compared those numbers with government weather data. According to Zinman, resorts reported 23 percent more snow on weekends. And the resorts that had the most to gain by fluffing up their numbers did more of it.

At the end of the day, resorts are profit making businesses with an eye on the bottom line. So what's a little deception to their customers if it helps the bottom line? Whatever.

It saddens me that I only skied two days last season and I'm not sure how much snow time I'm going to get this year.