Timberline Lodge: Historical Snowpack Charting Tool 

The Overall Problem

Timberline lodge is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Pacific Northwest. Located on scenic Mt. Hood, Timberline receives thousands of visitors every year during all seasons. Because Timberline is a destination location that is heavily influenced by the weather, it’s been important for their organization to have an effective digital presence through which visitors can plan their visits and understand both the history and possibilities open to them at Timberline Lodge.

GRAYBOX adopted the ExpressionEngine website that Timberline had developed as the platform through which they communicated with their customers. A key feature that was missing from the site was the ability to easily and accurately convey historical snowpack to site visitors. Because winter skiing is a key part of the Timberline business, it was critical that visitors had an easy way to look at trends in snowpack, and be able to plan their trips around times with the highest likelihood of quality snow for skiing. In addition, the Timberline Lodge staff needed an easy way to update this information, and the future flexibility to automate how the data is fed into the site.

Our Solution

1. Understanding the Data

The collection and storage of historical snowpack data has been a consistent initiative for Timberline lodge going back many decades. As a result, both the volume and complexity of the data were key pieces to understand before launching into the project. The GRAYBOX team collaborated closely with the Timberline Lodge team to review the historical data files and gain a thorough understanding of the needs. This included understanding the nature of the data, the sources of the data, how different files and data points did (and did not) relate to one another, and what the future would hold for how this data was collected. By starting with the foundation, the GRAYBOX team was able to build an effective plan that could be successfully executed.

2.Leveraging the right technology

Compiling and understanding the data is only the first step. Beyond that, GRAYBOX had to ensure the means by which the data was presented to the public would be effective, easy to use, and readily understandable. GRAYBOX researched multiple toolset options that would work effectively within the ExpressionEngine framework, be sufficiently flexible to accommodate future requests, and be easy to update for the Timberline Lodge users as new data became available. The experienced developers at GARYBOX chose Chart.js, an open source HTML5 javascript toolset designed specifically for creating dynamic charts on the web. By leveraging some off-the-shelf code, and customizing it to meet the specific needs of the client, GRAYBOX was able to craft an elegant and effective solution that provided helpful information to their customers.

3. Making it easy to use and future-pro

The nature of annual snowfall is that the data is constantly changing. As such, the Timberline Lodge team needed the solution to be easy to use and have flexibility to accommodate different data sources in the future. The GRAYBOX team took these factors into account when building the back-end of the system, ensuring any of the users with appropriate permissions could easily update the data by uploading a CSV/Excel file. We additionally structured the stored data in a way that will allow for both expanding the data sets in the future, as well as automating the feed of data into the system via an API when those data sources are made available programmatically. As a result, the system provides a dependable and scalable method for meeting their business needs into the future.