Building a Ski Resort API

Yes, yes, it’s now March. Almost the end of March at that! The last month and a half have been very hectic — I moved, went to Spain for MWC, and then got sick! I created Ski API at the start of February before I moved, but this blog post got stuck on the back burner. So I’m choosing to go with a loophole. Even if the blog post wasn’t done in February, the project was!

This was an idea that started out as another idea. It was a website that tells you which ski resort near you is the best to ski at today. I live in Vancouver, Canada, and we have many ski resorts near us. I have 3 resorts within a 30-minute drive, with another 3 under 2 hours away. This gluttony of choice can make it hard for many to decide where to ski! Should I stay at a local mountain, or is it worth the trek farther away?

As I started down that path, I realized that sourcing the data to build these suggestions didn’t exist. So I wrote out the things that mattered the most for an MVP algorithm. It came down to 3 items: lift statuses, snow levels, and weather forecasts. Between these 3 variables, I can make a (relatively) accurate assessment of where it will be best to ski on any given day.

After some research, it became clear that no one offers this data. Snow Forecast offers some snow level details and forecasts, but not all.  There was one exception - lift statuses. My research led me to the incredible Liftie project on Github. It offers a simple, clean web interface for seeing lift status at different ski resorts. But it only solved one of my core needs.

I love building APIs. It’s what I’ve spent most of the last decade of my life doing. A few years ago, I created a little weather embedding API and offered it through RapidAPI. I decided I’d do the same thing with 

After some back and forth, I decided to fork Liftie to add my needed functionality. It’s a great project, but there were too many changes I wanted to make. It’s designed as a great, simple web application rather than my API-only approach.

The codebase is more or less a complete re-write of the Liftie project. All that’s left is its base scraping logic. In addition, I’ve re-done the webserver logic of the database/caching system and added a whack load of new features. It offers a clean simple API for reading all the information about a resort that you would care about.

After finishing up Ski API, it felt too late in the season to build my original idea of a “where to ski” recommender. It’s on my list as my potential project for December! It felt too late in the season to build my original idea of a “where to ski” recommender. It’s on my list as my potential project for December!