Piste



A piste is a marked ski run or path down a mountain for snow skiing, snowboarding, or other mountain sports.

This European term is French ("trail", "track") and synonymous with 'trail', 'slope', or 'groomed run' in North America. The word is pronounced using a long "e" sound (e.g. rhymes with "beast").

Increasingly, North Americans employ its common European antonym, 'off piste', to describe backcountry skiing, especially when referring to skiing outside officially approved areas of a ski resort.

Piste maintenance
Pistes are usually maintained using tracked vehicles known as snowcats to compact or "groom" the snow to even out trail conditions, remove moguls, and redistribute snow to extend the ski season. Natural snow is often augmented with snow making machines early in the season or when the snowpack is low.

Ratings
Typically, grading is done by the resort, and grades are relative to other trails within that resort. As such, they are not classified to an independent standard; although they are likely to be roughly similar, skiers should be cautious about assuming that grades in two different resorts are absolutely equivalent.

North America, Australia and New Zealand
In North America, Australia and New Zealand, a color–shape rating system is used to indicate the comparative difficulty of trails (otherwise known as slopes or pistes).

Ski trail difficulty is measured by percent slope (grade), not degree angle. In general, beginner slopes (green circle) are between 6% and 25%. Intermediate slopes (blue square) are between 25% and 40%. Difficult slopes (black diamond) are 40% and up. However, this is just a general "rule of thumb". Although slope gradient is the primary consideration in assigning a trail difficulty rating, other factors come into play. A trail will be rated by its most difficult part, even if the rest of the trail is easy. Ski resorts assign ratings to their own trails, rating a trail compared only with other trails at that resort. Also considered: width of the trail, sharpest turns, terrain roughness, and whether the resort regularly grooms the trail.

Europe
In Europe, pistes are classified by a color-coded system. The actual color system differs in parts for each country, although in all countries blue (easy), red (intermediate) and black (expert) are used. Shapes are often not used, sometimes all ratings are circles as being defined in the basic rules of the German Skiing Association DSV. The three basic color codes of the DSV have been integrated into the national standards DIN 32912 in Germany and ÖNORM S 4610 f in Austria.

Slopes marked green, blue or red are groomed in all countries; blacks are groomed in Italy, Austria and Switzerland, while in France most black slopes are not groomed, but some are. All other classifications are generally not groomed. Sometimes slopes are marked on piste maps as dotted or as dashed lines, this also signifies that the slope is not groomed.

The ratings are:
 * Green: (France, Poland, Scandinavia, Spain, UK.) Learning or Beginner slopes. These are usually not marked trails, but tend to be large, open, gently sloping areas at the base of the ski area or traverse paths between the main trails. Can sometimes be marked as a Green circle.
 * Blue: An easy trail, and are almost always groomed, or on so shallow a slope as not to need it. The slope gradient does not normally exceed 25% except for short wide sections with a higher gradient. Sometimes described as a blue square.
 * Red: An intermediate slope. Steeper or narrower than a blue slope, these are usually groomed, unless the narrowness of the trail prohibits it. The slope gradient does not normally exceed 40% except for short wide sections with a higher gradient. Sometimes marked as a red rectangle.
 * Black: An advanced or expert slope. Steep, may or may not be groomed, or may be groomed for mogul skiing. In Austria, Italy and Switzerland black pistes are nearly always groomed, as non-groomed pistes are marked as skiroutes or itineraires (see section below); in France, some black pistes are groomed, but most are not. Black can be a very wide classification, ranging from a slope marginally more difficult than a red, to very steep avalanche chutes like the infamous Couloirs of Courchevel. France tends to have a higher limit between red and black. Sometimes marked as a black diamond, such as in the United Kingdom.
 * Double or triple black diamond: (Scandinavia.) Very or extremely difficult piste.
 * Orange: (Austria, Switzerland, certain other areas.) Extremely difficult.
 * Yellow, orange square, red diamond: In recent years, many resorts reclassified some black slopes to yellow slopes. This signifies a skiroute, itinéraire, or freerideroute. These are ungroomed and unpatrolled routes which are actually off-piste skiing, but marked and secured from avalanches. Famous examples are the Stockhorn area in Zermatt and the Tortin slopes in Verbier. In Austria, skiroutes are usually marked with orange squares instead. It is also common to mark these routes with a red diamond or a red diamond with black edges (the latter being more difficult).

Alpine slope classification in Europe is less rigidly tied to slope angle than in North America. A lower angle slope may be classified as more difficult than a steeper slope if, for instance, it is narrower and/or requires better skiing ability to carry speed through flatter sections while controlling speed through sharp hairpin turns, off-camber slope angles or exposed rock.

Japan
Japan uses a color-coded system, but shapes do not usually accompany them. Some resorts, mainly those catering to foreigners, use the North American or European color-coding system, adding to the confusion. The usual ratings are:
 * Green: Beginner slopes. These are usually near the base of the mountain, although some follow switchback routes down from the top.
 * Red: Intermediate slopes. At most ski areas in Japan, these constitute the majority of the slopes.
 * Black: Expert slopes. These are the steepest and most difficult slopes at the ski area. The difficulty of these compared to like-classified slopes at other ski areas is heavily dependent on the target audience.

Japan has more than 1000 ski areas (115 in Nagano Prefecture alone), many of them small and family-oriented, so comparisons between slope classifications in Japan and "equivalent" slopes in Europe or North America are minimal.