About
Score the mountain.
Then plan the trip.
BEARING exists because most mountain travel advice is either too generic to be useful or too commercial to be trusted. We built something different.
Why BEARING exists
The premise is simple: the same mountain is a completely different experience depending on when you arrive. A week too early and the base is thin. A week too late and the powder has consolidated into spring slush. The window where conditions, access, and daylight converge into something genuinely exceptional is often just two or three weeks per season — and it moves.
Most travel resources tell you where to go. BEARING tells you when. And increasingly, whether it's worth going at all — because a mediocre trip to an exceptional destination is worse than no trip. It raises expectations it can't fulfil.
The reports track snowpack development from the first significant storm of the season. The scores synthesise storm cycle position, base depth, forecast, and access conditions into a single number — not because a single number captures everything, but because it forces honest prioritisation. The journeys are chosen because they represent the best version of a specific experience at a specific moment. Not a catalogue. A selection.
That's the model. Intelligence that earns the trip decision — or saves you from the wrong one.
The founder
Founder
Steve Stokely
Steve has spent two decades skiing across four continents — from Alta's high-Cottonwood snowpack to Hokkaido's cold-maritime powder to the technical couloirs above Chamonix. The through-line has always been timing: understanding not just where to go, but precisely when conditions justify the journey.
BEARING is built on that obsession. Steve designed the scoring system from the ground up: the scoring model, the editorial framework, and the prediction engine that synthesises live snowpack data, storm cycle analysis, and access conditions into daily reports. The model was developed over three seasons of back-testing against known condition windows to ensure it reflects what experienced skiers actually care about — not marketing copy from resort PR departments.
The journeys are places Steve has been, operators he trusts, and timing windows he'd stake his own trip on. Nothing is listed that hasn't been vetted at that level.
How the reports work
Snowpack tracking
Each monitored resort is tracked from the first significant storm of the season. Base depth, new accumulation, storm cycle position, and forecast data are pulled daily. This isn't snapshot data — it's a continuous read of how the season is developing.
The score
The condition score (0–100) synthesises six variables: base depth relative to seasonal average, 7-day new snow, 14-day forecast, temperature stability, rain days, and high-wind days. Road and access conditions apply a penalty when applicable. The score is recalculated daily at 5AM.
Editorial layer
Raw data produces the score. The editorial layer translates it. Timing notes, travel conditions, and the summary are written against live data to interpret what the numbers mean for a trip decision, including whether conditions are building, peaking, or declining.
Journey selection
Journeys are active for a season, not permanently. They're selected because the timing intelligence, access logistics, and on-the-ground operators are right at that moment. A journey is retired when those conditions no longer hold — replaced by something that does.
Read the reports.
Free reports, published daily. No account required to read.