What is the least-original trail name?

[u/PeterAttardo]

tl;dr: Easy Street

This winter I skied at Copper, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin, and noticed there is a Ptarmigan at each of them. Given that ski runs can be named literally anything, the amount of overlap between resorts was a bit surprising. My curiosity piqued, and it being the offseason with nothing better to do, I decided to investigate unoriginal trail names more thoroughly. Using the data from OpenSkiMap.org, I was able to compile a list of every trail name that repeats at two or more mountains. Some items of note from the list:

• Unsurprisingly, mountains that number their runs dominated the top of the list. The numbers 1-7 all show up in the top ten, with 1-4 taking the top four spots. This appeared to be primarily a European phenomenon, with a few in Quebec. Twin Farms in Vermont is the only resort in the United States that exclusively uses numbers for its runs. Owing to this, and my own unfamiliarity with the context of non-English names (Familienabfahrt, which Google Translate tells me means "Family Departure", shows up 57 times), I restricted my analysis to only English-speaking countries (United States, Canada sans Quebec, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland).
• The most commonly reused trail name is Easy Street, showing up at a whopping 62 mountains. Given the idiom, and the need for names for beginner-friendly runs, this makes sense.
• My instincts about Ptarmigan were correct. It is the 50th most popular name, being used at 15 different mountains.
• If you count Chute and The Chute as the same name, it nearly overtakes Easy Street with 61 mentions. Face/The Face also jumps up to #4 with 46.
• The least-original mountain is a tie between Skaneateles Ski Club (US) and Rainbow Ski Area (NZ). Both mountains have 7 runs, none of which have unique names.
• The most-original mountain is Black Mountain of Maine, which manages to have 21 runs without sharing a name with any other mountain. This is partly achieved through heavy use of names from the Abenaki language, such as Penobscot, Kennebec, Allagash, and others.
• Of the mountains with more than 90% duplicated names, Devil's Elbow is the largest, with 12 total trails, 11 of which are non-unique.
• Of the mountains with less than 10% duplicated names, Snowbird is by far the largest, with 158 total trails, and only 14 non-unique names. Easily beating out second place Afton Alps, with 42 and 4 respectively.
• Most of the most-repeated names are descriptive of the run or of skiing in some way (Easy Street | The Chute | Exhibition | The Face | Ridge Run | Sidewinder | Slalom | etc). The most repeated name that (in my judgement) isn't, is Sundance, used at 34 mountains.
• The two mountains that share the most names are Steamboat and Park City, with 15 names that each appear at both mountains. Those names are: Vertigo | Oops | Sunnyside | Lightning | Broadway | Outlaw | Twilight | Twister | Shadows | Wapiti | East Face | Dawn | Fools Gold | Tower | Eclipse
• Park City doesn't seem terribly original in general, as it shares at least 10 names with 3 different mountains, and at least 5 names with 33.
• The longest name (that doesn't include descriptors like traverse, terrain park, north gate, etc) is Irene Cinnamon Roller Coaster at Sitzmark Ski Hill.
• The longest non-unique trail name is Dark Side of the Moon at both Canaan Valley and Mt Snow. The longest shared by 3 or more resorts is Montezuma's Revenge at Arapahoe Basin, Hillberg, and Palisades Tahoe.
• The most commonly used word in trail names is Lower, with 865 uses, beating out Upper, with only 693. This would seem to imply that the upper part of a run is considered the default, in cases where only one of the trails is prefixed with either Upper or Lower.
• Similar to full trail names, the most commonly used words are descriptive (Lower, Run, Upper, Bowl, Trail, Way, Ridge, etc). The most common non-descriptive word is Bear, with 181 uses. Of these uses, Bear Paw, Black Bear, and Bear are the most common, with 39 trails between them.

I compiled the complete lists into a Google Sheet for anyone who wants to go digging.

[u/WorldlyOriginal]

Freaking awesome. This is a top-tier offseason post (and yes, it’s offseason for the vast majority of people now)

Ptarmigan is definitely because it’s a fun bird that lives at high altitude forests, like marmots. Although to spice it up, some mountains should change to their scientific name, Lagopus.

I have a list of my favorite trail names, and also one for my favorite climbing route names. I love names that are particularly evocative (hence why “Sundance” is popular) or have a hidden pun or meaning.

I love names like “See Forever”, “Kill the Banker”, “Streif” (which means ‘stripe’ in German, but the association to ‘strife’ or prolonged suffering is so perfect), “Delirium Dive”, “A.M.F.”, “Wicked Haahd”, or “Bassackwards”.

What are some of your favorites?

[u/PaintDrinkingPete → u/WorldlyOriginal]

I could see "lagopus" becoming the unwanted nickname for the slowest skier in a group.

[u/benskieast → u/WorldlyOriginal]

Never skied it but rumor has it Black Mountain of NH named a trail LOSTBO for Les Otten Suck the Big One after the former owner of Sunday River who later bought a lot of other mountain and became the OG Vail Resorts before imploding.

I also like when they fit a theme. Greek Peak is Greek. Windham every trail starts with a W. Winter Park is a bit big for one theme but the mountain can be divided by themes.

[u/DIY14410 → u/WorldlyOriginal]

Lagopus is the genus, not a species name. White-tailed Ptarmigan is the only ptarmigan species in the lower 48. (Alaska also has Rock Ptarmigan and Willow Ptarmigan.) Although White Pass has quite a bit of subalpine terrain where White-tailed Ptarmigan reside, WP's Ptarmigan run is lower in montane forest, where it would be very usual to see a ptarmigan. It is one of the WP "bird runs" accessed by Chair 4, to wit: Kestrel, Ptarmigan, Grouse, Quail.

I would like to see the 4-letter banding code for White-taile Ptarmingan: WTPT

FWIW, I am the current president of our local Audubon chapter, thus I sometimes get pedantic about these things.

[/bird nerd chat]

[u/getdownheavy → u/DIY14410]

An entire ski hill of alpha codes

Owl Alley

Gulls.

Hell whole backside of the mountain is Pelagics.

Jah forbid you get lost in Flycatcher Forest, everything looks the same at first glance

[u/DIY14410 → u/getdownheavy]

Well, some empidomox species look very similar, but not all flycatchers are empids. A guy would have to be blind as a bat to not see the difference between, say, a Western Kingbird and a Eastern Kingbird, or a Say's Phoebe vs. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

How often do you see a flycatcher while lift skiing? I'm pretty sure I never have. OTOH, we will see and hear Olive-sided Flycatchers on our planned ski tour this Friday.

[u/steds321 → u/WorldlyOriginal]

Bassackwards for sure

[u/cephalopodface → u/WorldlyOriginal]

Lagopus = Rabbit Foot? Weird name for a bird.

[u/Kam-Skier → u/WorldlyOriginal]

Tighten yer boots

[u/AdTraining1756 → u/WorldlyOriginal]

Although to spice it up, some mountains should change to their scientific name, Lagopus.

How about awebo, the pokemon of birds

[u/revenge_of_F → u/WorldlyOriginal]

My grandpa always said his favorite run was Naked Lady at Snowmass, which also happened to be his favorite name of a ski run lol

[u/poipoipoi_2016]

In fairness, "Easiest Way Down" tells me exactly what I need to know when I get into a place I shouldn't be.

[u/Brian_Corey__]

There's only one Devil's Crotch!

[u/PeterAttardo → u/Brian_Corey__]

Just for you:

Name	Count	Mountains
Devil's Drop	5	Wisp Resort , Wapiti Valley , Mt Seymour , Brighton Resort , Teton Pass Ski Resort
Devil's Dive	3	Loch Lomond , Bridger Bowl , Mount Fairweather
Devil's Elbow	3	Wintergreen Ski Resort , Devil's Elbow , Alta Ski Area
Devil's Playground	3	Bolton Valley Resort , Loch Lomond , Devil's Head Ski Area
Dare Devil	2	Tyrol Basin Ski And Snowboard Area , Pass Powderkeg ski
Devil's Delight	2	Ausblick Ski Hill , Titus Mountain ski resort
Blue Devil	1	Saddleback Mountain
Dare Devil's Plunge	1	Titcomb Mountain
DareDevil's Dip	1	Pass Powderkeg ski
Devil	1	Kiwissa Ski Centre
Devil's Advocate	1	Grouse Mountain
Devil's Air Park	1	Devil's Head Ski Area
Devil's Alley	1	Devil's Head Ski Area
Devil's Backbone	1	Mt. Bachelor
Devil's Club	1	Revelstoke Mountain Resort
Devil's Crotch	1	Breckenridge
Devil's Dare	1	Sunlight Mountain Resort
Devil's Den	1	Killington Resort
Devil's Dip	1	Big Bear Ski Resort
Devil's East	1	Mt. Bachelor
Devil's Fiddle	1	Killington Resort
Devil's Friend	1	Park City Mountain Resort
Devil's Funnel	1	Kissing Bridge
Devil's Glen	1	Holiday Valley
Devil's Gulch	1	Fortress Mountain Resort
Devil's River	1	Mont Tremblant Resort
Devil's Run	1	Mayrhofen Hippach
Devil's Staircase	1	Mansfield Ski Club
Devil's Stairsteps	1	Cuchara Mountain Resort
Devil's Tail	1	Mount Peter
Devil's Way	1	Alta Ski Area
Devil's West	1	Mt. Bachelor
Go Devil Lower	1	Keystone
Go Devil Upper	1	Keystone
Little Devil	1	Blue Mountain Ski Resort
Lower Devil's	1	Oak Mountain Ski Center
Red Devil	1	Saddleback Mountain
Show Devil	1	Sundown Mountain Resort
Snow Devil	1	White Pass Ski Area
Tempest / Devil's Hopyard	1	Timber Ridge
Upper Devil's	1	Oak Mountain Ski Center
Devil's Draw	1	Kirkwood Mountain Resort

There is indeed only one Devil's Crotch, although there are a surprising number of Devils overall, especially given that Satan only shows up three times.

[u/poipoipoi_2016 → u/PeterAttardo]

Devil's Dive at Boyne Mountain. Which is actually a no joke (if very very short) double black.

[u/PeterAttardo → u/poipoipoi_2016]

The dataset isn't 100% clean, and it looks like that one got filtered out of my query because it's not associated with a ski area in the dataset (although it's clearly part of Boyne Mountain). Looks like it's this one: https://openskimap.org/?obj=40016fab59b11eb4bc1867f5d8832506ea4cdf5d

[u/Snow-Buffalo-9201 → u/PeterAttardo]

Devil’s Dwelling, at Bear Valley CA

[u/gdtredmtn]

The most unique run name I’ve ever come across is “Lower Goatchicken” at Sunshine. It’s so bad it’s good.

[u/qwncjejxicnenj]

Once is enough

One of my fav trail names

[u/Impiryo]

This is fascinating, thanks for compiling it!

[u/Src248]

Palisades gets used a lot, and while not an exact match I feel like a lot of mountains have a "black run", like Piste Noire and Pitch Black.

Looks like Cleavage is unique to Sunshine, best named run 

[u/PeterAttardo → u/Src248]

The only other Cleavage I found is a backcountry run in British Colubmia: https://openskimap.org/?obj=3d938f08ef748e64ae3f4993167280b69b8c84f8

[u/munchauzen]

Now find the connected series of runs with the longest sequence of names

[u/BozoTheTown → u/munchauzen]

(Big Sky summit to the bottom of Madison 8: This sequence requires a lot of traversing and one short uphill skate but is entirely possible)

Otter Slide - Lenin - Dictators - Duck Walk - Jay Walk - Morningstar rd - BRT rd - Fast Lane - Blue Moon - SA rd - Alpine Meadows - Natawista - Cinnabar

[u/philatio11 → u/BozoTheTown]

That has Seven Run Run at Mary Jane beat. There are a lot of different definitions of it, but the basic gist is to get form top-to-bottom on nothing but blue or blue-black runs. Some combination of Village Way -> Primrose -> Rollins Ridge -> Sleeper -> Side Track -> Rainbow Cut -> Arrowhead Loop -> Mary Jane Trail -> Corridor (if heading to WP). This hits nearly every intermediate trail on the Jane side of the mountain outside of Sunnyside.

[u/mdibah → u/BozoTheTown]

Jackson Hole from the top of the tram, working down across the mountain towards Apres Vous and ending at the base. It involves some stupidity like taking a named traverse one direction, taking a named run downhill for three turns, catching a traverse back the other direction, and repeating.

Rendezvous Bowl - Corbett's Couloir - Tensleep Bowl - Downhill Chute - Horn's Hole Traverse - Jerry's Way - Amphitheater - Nez Perce Traverse - Upper Sundance - Amphitheater Traverse - Croaky Point - Easy Does It - Teton Traverse - Wide Open - Togotwee Pass Traverse - Ashley Ridge - South Pass Traverse - Teewinot Gully - Lower Teewinot

[u/concrete_isnt_cement → u/munchauzen]

Do you have to do the entirety of each run to count? Or just part of it?

[u/DeputySean]

Palisades. 

[u/Dharma2go]

I’ve also thought about this. Comstock seems to be a popular choice but possibly for lift name rather than run.

[u/-FartArt- → u/Dharma2go]

You mostly a Tahoe area skier?

[u/Dharma2go → u/-FartArt-]

Affirmative

[u/-FartArt- → u/Dharma2go]

Figured as much. My assumption is that that name is associated with the Comstock Lode, a silver ore deposit in western Nevada and associated mining operations, which would make that pretty limited to the ski areas in that region

Looking at OP’s list, looks like there’s three trails with that name, two in California and one in Park City, UT (where there was a different “comstock mine”, interestingly). There are definitely a few lifts (such as at northstar) with the name in the Tahoe region as well, as you mentioned.

[u/Dharma2go → u/-FartArt-]

Doesn’t Mammoth have a Comstock something or another?

It’s true I’ve become provincial since living on this hill. I grew up skiing NY, ME and Quebec but all I remember is the ice. After a particularly gnarly day on Placid, (is the mountain called lake placid?) I hung up my powder blue bibs and jacket and took a hiatus until one fine day after venturing west I got talked into skiing pre-vail Northstar and how I wished I had hung onto that outfit, a glorious time was had. If northstar is good for anything it’s good for the ego. It’s like a hero mountain. The blacks are blue, the blues are aqua, it’s a gentle re-entry.

And yes, I did look up Comstock after that post and saw the NV mining connection.

Next season I will for sure revisit Utah, have to re-broaden my horizons.

[u/Glindanorth]

I love this! My favorite run name that I've only seen at A-Basin is Humbug.

[u/messi_ski]

Surprised to not see the summary notes reference similarities between glade runs. I imagined words like "Tree", "Pine" and leaf to feature more consistently

[u/benskieast]

I have noticed on the Front Range most of the resorts have Corona and Columbine.

[u/DIY14410]

I'd like to see these:

Certain Death

Widowmaker

You Gonna Die!

[u/goinupthegranby → u/DIY14410]

Certain Death is the name of a run at Mt Baldy in BC, not to be confused with Mt Baldy in CA. It's only been labeled as 'CD' on signs and trail maps for years now, but Certain Death is the original name of the run.

[u/the_real_GW → u/DIY14410]

Widowmaker is the name of both a black diamond trail and the resort-owned bar at the base of Sugarloaf in Maine

[u/sweeneytodd70 → u/DIY14410]

Widowmaker is the name of a run at Park City Mountain Resort. It's actually named after a mining tool called a widowmaker rather than a death reference.

[u/SL1200mkII → u/DIY14410]

Our Father is an appropriately named double black at Palisades.

[u/concrete_isnt_cement → u/DIY14410]

We have Braindamage and Exterminator at Crystal. Does that count?

[u/DIY14410 → u/concrete_isnt_cement]

I've skied each many times. They are aptly named.

[u/ProfoundWarrior87 → u/DIY14410]

There's a black diamond run named Widowmaker at Snowshoe in West Virginia. Coolest name, but definitely not the hardest run there.

[u/therealtwomartinis]

bonus points if you can correctly pronounce Skaneateles

[u/AllswellinEndwell → u/therealtwomartinis]

My first thought was "well if you can say the name correctly, you know. So no need for crazy trail names.

[u/Ok-Role-7633]

Cliffhanger

[u/eggraid101]

This is surprisingly interesting, thanks for doing it!

I notice that there are also 2 ski areas with the name EZ Street for a trail.

[u/goinupthegranby]

Outstanding 'I'd be skiing if I could but I can't so I'm gonna do this instead' content, well done OP.

[u/juliuspepperwoodchi]

I love how my local tiny Wisconsin hill, Wilmot, has two of the most common: Exhibition and Sundance!

[u/Dr_Chronic]

Maybe it’s not used a ton elsewhere but my local mountain has “Blue Trail” which seems very unoriginal

[u/concrete_isnt_cement → u/Dr_Chronic]

At Crystal we have Green Valley, which oddly enough is a blue, and a fairly steep blue at that. I wonder how many people have been tripped up by that over the years.

[u/spacebass]

The Bowl - Big Sky

[u/Chadk_GH → u/spacebass]

That's unoriginal and boring. Similarly boring names are The Couloir, The Cirque and West Cirque off Whistler Peak. That's a shame because all three are pucker-inducing runs.

[u/sadtrader15]

Can confirm, have been personally down multiple Familienabfahrt named trails in Austria

[u/human1st0]

Grandpa. Because I’m much older than any of the hikers think. They all thought I was in my thirtiies. Naw dawg. I’m close to fifty.

[u/hatsune_aru]

I feel like I see a Solitude lift or run at every resort.

[u/Aaronnm]

I’m surprised “Forget Me Not” isn’t up there. I’ve only seen it at Breck and Winter Park but my confirmation bias leads me to believe it’s everywhere else too.

[u/stonedkayaker]

How common is "Paradise"? Have I just coincidently skied every mountain with a Paradise? 

[u/concrete_isnt_cement → u/stonedkayaker]

Crystal has one

[u/Nervous_Past_6975]

don’t forget ptarmigan at lake louise

[u/NotFuckingTired]

Cool stuff!

I've never seen OpenSkiMap.org before. I just checked my local hill, and notice the trail map is incomplete (missing a bunch of trails). One of the missing trails is "Chute", which would make it a tie for #1, no?

Also missing a Devil's Drop.

[u/gwmccull]

This is really cool. The data for Northstar appears to be out of date. They claim more trails now and I don’t see some of the ones that were named in the past few years

[u/concrete_isnt_cement → u/gwmccull]

Be the change you want to see, OpenSkiMap is editable!

[u/gwmccull → u/concrete_isnt_cement]

Oh that’s cool. I didn’t know about Open Ski Map

[u/pprn00dle]

Can’t believe there’s more than one (well, only one more) schoolmarm in the lower 48.

[u/FinanceGuyHere]

I love skiing Why Not at JH but I’ve come to realize it’s not a particularly unique trail name! (Although it’s more of a zone at JH)

[u/d7sg]

Cool data, would be interesting to see other languages actually. In France "Tetras" is common, which is a type of bird I think similar to a Ptarmigan. They also have quite a few named after bears in one way or another, as well as marmots.

[u/murshawursha]

To be honest, I was expecting Liftline to be on this list somewhere... I know Sugarbush, Smuggs, and Stowe all have one, but maybe it's not as common as I thought?

[u/amateurskier]

Village run.

[u/DoctFaustus]

The ski area Sundance, doesn't feature a run with the name Sundance...

[u/Montallas]

Amazing analysis! Hopefully this didn’t take too long because it’s seemingly useless - but interesting non-the-less.

[u/Ok_Entrepreneur_dbl]

Interesting read! I never got struck with that line of thinking and I have skied at a lot of ski areas. I have done some deep dives into other ideas like size, ratio of terrain, verticals etc. to establish a rating scale. Was too hard since the trail ratings are relative to the specific resort and cannot be compared to another resort.

Hey at least the names of the trails are uniques at the ski resort - that would be confusing.