# Data and Sources · LiftLine AI

> Each outside source LiftLine AI reads, who publishes it, what we use it for, what we keep, and the credit it carries.

- Canonical human page: https://liftlineai.app/trust/data/
- AI-readable edition: https://liftlineai.app/trust/data/index.html.md
- Publisher: LiftLine AI
- Last verified: October 3, 2026

## What this page publishes

If our software reads a source that is not on this page, that is a mistake on our side.

## What we read

**Every outside source, and what we keep from it**
| Source | Who publishes it | What we use it for | What we keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| MtnPowder | Alterra Mountain Company's MtnPowder feed, carrying what each resort publishes | Lift and trail status for the resorts we cover, read every 15 minutes, with the snow, weather and road notes the resorts publish alongside it. | Mapped fields only. No raw feed response is stored. |
| Open-Meteo | Open-Meteo, Zurich | Hourly and daily weather forecasts for every resort. | Forecast values, per resort per hour. |
| National Weather Service | NOAA / National Weather Service, United States federal government | Forecasts and alerts as a cross-check on Open-Meteo. | Forecast values, per resort per hour. |
| Apple WeatherKit | Apple | The weather the iPhone app shows at a resort. The app asks Apple directly. | Nothing. It is shown on the phone. |
| Public resort webcams | The resorts that broadcast them | A vision model on our own computer counts the people standing in lift lines. It is our only direct view of how long a line is. | A head count, a confidence and a timestamp for each frame we count, and some frames, kept to train and check the counter. |
| OpenStreetMap | OpenStreetMap contributors, via the OpenStreetMap Foundation | Lift lines, runs, lodges and resort boundaries: the skeleton of the mountain graph the simulation runs on. | A derived routable graph. Raw extracts are cached for rebuilds. |
| USGS 3DEP lidar | United States Geological Survey | The terrain itself: slope, aspect and elevation, at a California ski area to about one foot. | Derived terrain rasters and classifier features. |
| USGS The National Map imagery | USDA National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP), served by the USGS | Aerial imagery for the terrain classifier and for map renders. | Derived classifications. Tiles are cached during a build. |
| Lift specifications | skiresort.com, liftblog.com, Wikipedia, and resort-published specifications | Carrier capacity, rope speed and rated riders per hour for each lift. Lift queues in the simulation form from these. | One record per lift, with the source cited on the record. |
| Skier crowd reports | Our own users | A reported wait at a lift, used as a second observation alongside the cameras. | The lift, the value, the time, and your account ID. No coordinates. |
| Ikon and Epic blackout calendars | Alterra Mountain Company and Vail Resorts | Blackout dates, as a sign of when crowds are likely. | The date ranges, entered by hand once a season. Nothing is fetched. |

### Credit and licences

- **Open-Meteo:** Weather data by Open-Meteo, CC-BY 4.0
- **Apple WeatherKit:** Weather in the iPhone app: Apple Weather
- **OpenStreetMap:** © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL
- **USGS 3DEP lidar:** Elevation data: USGS 3DEP (public domain)
- **USGS The National Map imagery:** Imagery: USGS The National Map / USDA NAIP (public domain)

## Things people assume are sources and are not

- Caltrans. We have no Caltrans integration. Road notes come from the resort feed, and any credit we once gave Caltrans was wrong.
- Your location. Skier crowd reports carry no coordinates: the endpoint accepts none and the table has no column for one.

## If a source stops

If the resort feed stops, or a resort's webcams go dark, the forecast for that resort gets worse or stops, and we would say so in the app rather than show a number with nothing behind it. Whether each resort's lift status is arriving on time is shown live on the overview and at https://status.liftlineai.app.

_Last reviewed October 3, 2026._

## Canonical identity shared across LiftLine AI

- Company: LiftLine AI — https://liftlineai.app/
- Legal person: Lucas Jaeger, an individual sole proprietor doing business as LiftLine AI. There is no separate legal entity.
- Consumer product: Snowcat by LiftLine AI — https://liftlineai.app/snowcat/
- Founder: Lucas Jaeger, founder of LiftLine AI and creator of Snowcat — https://liftlineai.app/about/
- Snowcat is made by LiftLine AI and was created by Lucas Jaeger.
- LiftLine AI is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by a California ski area, Alterra Mountain Company, Vail Resorts, Ikon Pass, Epic Pass, or any ski resort.
- Live predictions are paused for the off-season and return for the 2026-2027 winter.
- Public figures, sources, and exclusions: https://liftlineai.app/trust/

## Use and provenance

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