As a founding partner of Falkirk Environmental Consultants, Michael McPhie spends his time working in environmental and management consulting. Providing resources both locally in Canada and internationally, Michael McPhie works with a number of different governmental, financial, and indigenous groups by informing and supporting a number of infrastructure and resource development projects. In addition, Mr. McPhie spends his time enjoying outdoor recreational hobbies such as boating, running, and skiing.
Firstly, the easiest slopes are denoted with green circles for beginners, and are wide with a low gradient of less than 25 percent. With beginners in mind, these slopes are often groomed which packs the snow down, leaving the trail a little easier to ski down. Next are blue squares for the intermediate skiers. These slopes have 25 percent to 40 percent gradient, and because of their popularity, the ski lifts can go twice as fast as the ones found on the green circle slopes.
After intermediate difficulty, North America diverges from the system Europe and the rest of the world uses regarding the difficulty of ski slopes. Although mostly similar, Europe uses a red rating to indicate a difficulty between intermediate and advanced, while the North American system has no such delineation.
Finally, the black diamond runs are for the expert skiers due to their ungroomed snow and very steep gradients of over 40 percent. There are also double-black diamonds that often contain hazards such as trees, steep drop-off, or high winds. Because each run is designed dependent upon the mountain itself, it is not uncommon for the difficulty of black diamond slopes to vary greatly across different ski resorts.
Michael McPhie 