Boulder, Colorado is the undisputed center of the North American skiing universe. And we don’t mean to say skiing is more popular here than elsewhere. Rather, we’re speaking in geographical terms—there’s “east of here,” and “west of here.” It’s a fact—learn to live with it.

Every year we hear people debating the age-old question of whether skiers from the East are better or worse than skiers from the West. So this year we decided to settle the score.

To put an end to the fiery debate, we considered a number of factors, from contest results, to major film appearances, exposure in FREESKIER magazine, and beyond—17 different criteria in total. We weighted said categories based on our subjective order of importance, enlisted Christopher Steiner (Steiner was a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune and Forbes Magazine; he’s published two books including Automate This, which focuses on the power of algorithms.) of zrankings.com to craft an algorithm, plugged in the numbers and voila!.. out popped a winner. For your reference, our formula looks like this:

Below, you’ll find the breakdown of each category and who came out on top. It was a tight race but in the end we could only crown one winner. Note: In the case of a professional skier’s representation (East or West), the determining factor is the location of his/her upbringing.

AFP Point Totals

Category weight: 10 – Based on points accumulated between 2012-2014; North American competitors only, both male and female.
East: 591 pts | West: 1,000 pts

X Games Medals

Category weight: 8 – Based on X Games Aspen 2012-2014; North American competitors only, both male and female.
East: 533 pts | West: 800 pts

Olympic Medals Earned

Category weight: 8 – Based on Sochi Winter Games; North American competitors only, both male and female, including slopestyle and halfpipe disciplines.
East: 640 pts | West: 800 pts

FWT Overall Rankings

Category weight: 7 – Based on points accumulated between 2012-2014; North American competitors only, both male and female.
East: 680 pts | West: 700 pts

Major Film Appearances

Category weight: 6 – Considering most recent film releases from Level 1 Productions, Poor Boyz Productions, MSP Films, Stept Productions, Teton Gravity Research and Sherpas Cinema.
East: 283 pts | West: 600 pts

FREESKIER Profile Appearances

Category weight: 5 – Based on 94 profiled athletes across recent FREESKIER publications.
East: 479 pts | West: 500 pts

FREESKIER Epics Appearances

Category weight: 4 – Based on 55 Epics photos showcased in recent FREESKIER publications.
East: 211 pts | West: 400 pts

Covers of FREESKIER Magazine

Category weight: 3 – Based on FREESKIER Magazine, volumes 13-16 North American skiers only.
East: 200 pts | West: 300 pts

USASA National Rankings

Category weight: 2 – Based on points accumulated in 2013-14 both male and female, including slopestyle and halfpipe disciplines.
East: 39 pts | West: 200 pts

Level 1 Superunknown Contest Winners

Category weight: 2 – Based on history of Level 1 Superunknown, North American competitors only.
East: 200 pts | West: 80 pts

Skier of the Year Winners

Category weight: 2 – Based on history of FREESKIER’s SOTY; North American competitors only.
East: 200 pts | West: 0 pts

NASTAR Average Finish

Category weight: 1 – Based on 1,369 of the Nation’s top ranked NASTAR skiers, across multiple age groups, including both male and female.
East: 100 pts | West: 23 pts

Road Trip Challenge Winners

Category weight: 1 – Based on Road Trip Challenge of 2007 and 2014.
East: 100 pts | West: 0 pts

FREESKIER.com Demographic

Category weight: 1 – Based on a total of 24,749,700 pageviews of FREESKIER.com, U.S. visitors only.
East: 98 pts | West: 100 pts

Biggie vs. Tupac

Category weight: .5 – Based on a total record sales, lifetime and postmortem.
East: 13 pts | West: 50 pts

Sierra Nevada vs. Sam Adams

Category weight: .5 – Based on National sales ranking.
East: 50 pts | West: 25 pts

Dunkin’ vs. Chipotle

Category weight: .5 – Based on National sales in billions of dollars, 2013.
East: 50 pts | West: 24 pts

And The Winner Is…

West: 5,602 pts | East: 4,467 pts

Let it be known, the majority of the FREESKIER edit staff hails from the East Coast. Thus, we’re well aware that the results of this examination will induce a bit of a sting for many skiers out there. All we can say is this: We sure like to be on top. But, sometimes it’s not such a bad thing to be on the bottom. It’s less work…

Note: This article appears in FREESKIER magazine Volume 17.3. The issue is now available via iTunes Newsstand. Subscribe to FREESKIER magazine.