Thinking about going skiing this winter? It happened once that I, a Miami native, gleefully decided to do such a thing one winter in college. Thinking I could snowboard because I used to skateboard, I got on one, took a short lesson, and proceeded to injure myself several times in the form of several bonks to the head that I ended up surviving, though not without suffering dain bramage.

But if you think you can stand up to the pummeling discipline that falling onto icy snow at high speeds can inflict on your fragile human body, think no further than SkiBonk. If you’ve got a place in mind – and it doesn’t even have to be an actual resort, it can be a general area – then SkiBonk will tell you all you need to know about the place. Directions, how much snow, what kind of snow, forecasts, videos about the particular resort, all in one package, all in one map in the middle of the screen.

You can search ‘city’, ’state’, ‘province’, ‘country’, ‘continent’ ’ski resort name’, so we’re not just limited to the US and Canada here, though I don’t think they have Antarctica cataloged yet.

Ski Bonk is a mashup of SnoCountry, OnTheSnow, Weather Underground, the National Weather Service. (Weather Underground? Isn’t that the anti-war group that bombed the pentagon in the 70’s? Well now it’s a website! Thank goodness things have gotten more towards the recreational an less towards the explosive and deadly side. At least in some countries.)

Users can take advantage of the dropdown box on the right hand of the screen to select a data set, then click a column header in the detail box to visually display that information on the map. Searching SkiBonk before skiing will let you know almost exactly what you’re getting into minus the actual experience, and provided you stay vertical, you should be fine. If not, stick to cross country, a sport I never really understood, and the winners of which at the winter Olympic games seemed very tired, cold, and crazed.

SkiBonk – search the snow, get your skis, don’t fall over, and have a great winter!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.