Since I've been skiing this has been how I've experienced all the terrain. His maps just are skiing to me. But, interestingly, with the rise of smartphones/gps apps like Slopes and the late lamented Fatmap have started to move the ski world towards 3d terrain maps and away from these artistic maps.
I have a side project I've been meaning to dust off that translated GPS coordinates to locations on Niehues maps. I got it working reasonably well but the distortions were significant enough that it needs a lot of control points to do the mapping.
I think it's wrong to mention ski maps without crediting Pierre Novat (1), perhaps the original creator of this style (2) since 1962. But what is more important is that Novat actually took the work of Heinrich Berann (3) for Val d'Isère (4) and amended it that result is what we know as ski maps today.
There is some debate about who was first, Berann or Novat, but either way, this was 40 years before James Niehues from the article even started working in this style.
Thank you for this. I think Niehues has been incredibly prolific and successful, but also his marketing of himself as sort of the originator and one true purveyor of this style has been even more successful.
I bought the book of his work that was on kickstarter a few years ago, because ski maps are something I've always kind of loved.
Honestly it was a little disappointing -- the maps in the book are just the paintings of the mountains/terrain, no trail/lift/amenity markings, and thumbing threw it for a little while, they all kind of look exactly the same.
Trails and lifts change and get renamed over the years so they aren’t painted by James. They’re added by the ski resort later so in James’s book, he shared his raw paintings not the augmentation done by the resort.
Love everything he's ever done. Phones and skiing don't mix. Dropping a paper trail map off the lift won't ruin your run. Dropping your phone will. Why spend time thinking about wireless, bars of service etc. when you can look at ART to plan your next downhill ADVENTURE???
This is so fascinating. I have been snowboarding for at least 15 years and had no idea that this was done by hand. The maps are so clear, specifically when you have multiple mountains with many one-way slopes across them. Next time I mindlessly throw away these art pieces, I will remember “Monet of the mountains”. Also will definitely share this story with someone on the chair lift ride.
Being used to European style ski maps, I don’t really understand why you would paint a ski map. A ski map is a map and should convey all the information you need without being overwhelming. I don’t get it why it would show different trees or why the colors need to be natural. A map is a man made thing, nature is outdoors. There is no need to reflect it on the mapy
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 40.4 ms ] threadSince I've been skiing this has been how I've experienced all the terrain. His maps just are skiing to me. But, interestingly, with the rise of smartphones/gps apps like Slopes and the late lamented Fatmap have started to move the ski world towards 3d terrain maps and away from these artistic maps.
I have a side project I've been meaning to dust off that translated GPS coordinates to locations on Niehues maps. I got it working reasonably well but the distortions were significant enough that it needs a lot of control points to do the mapping.
There is some debate about who was first, Berann or Novat, but either way, this was 40 years before James Niehues from the article even started working in this style.
1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Novat (FR)
2. http://tropfragile.free.fr/galerie/Photos.html
3. https://www.berann.com/panorama/
4. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Left-of-the-dashed-line-...
Honestly it was a little disappointing -- the maps in the book are just the paintings of the mountains/terrain, no trail/lift/amenity markings, and thumbing threw it for a little while, they all kind of look exactly the same.
I appreciate the artwork though.