DENVER (AP) — This season, there's more to technology on the ski slopes than the new shapes in skis.

As skiers and snowboarders head online to book vacations and then brag about it, Colorado resorts are amping up their social media and smart phone applications to reach them, offering everything from geotagging to automatic Twitter updates.

Vail Resorts Inc. and Aspen Skiing Co. are launching new apps, and resort employees industrywide are also plastering Facebook walls and tweeting about recent snowfall and special deals that might not be available anywhere else but online.

"It's definitely part of this trend of 'marketing made personal,"' said Melanie Mills, president and chief executive officer of the trade group Colorado Ski Country USA. "Everyone is using technology to talk more directly with their guests and more individually to their guests."

Past seasons have had ski and snowboard manufacturers touting new equipment shapes. This season, techies are buzzing about Vail Resorts Inc.'s free new EpicMix mobile and online application, which uses radio frequency identification tags on lift tickets and season passes.

The RFID tags and new scanners on lift towers let EpicMix track customers' ski days and vertical feet logged at Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek in Colorado and Heavenly in California, without a rider doing anything extra.

Customers who opt in can have that information automatically posted on their Twitter and Facebook updates, and their visits can earn them digital "pins," similar to what Gowalla and Foursquare offer. (For now, EpicMix pins don't translate into real-life rewards.)

If friends also have Facebook accounts linked to EpicMix, users with smart phones can get alerts about when those friends are on the mountain too and send them messages.

Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz says it's taking the apres ski tradition of swapping tales about an epic day on the mountain into the digital age, as visitors' stats are touted online to avid and casual skier friends alike.

"One of our social media goals is to create customers who create other customers for us," said Mike Slone, interactive director at Vail Resorts.

"It's a sign of a huge shift in how resorts are interacting with their guests. It's a very different approach to driving loyalty," said Mark Roebke, chief innovation officer for the ski software company RTP.

At RTP, Roebke is beefing up the Realski iPhone application that acts as an interactive trail map for dozens of North American resorts. Users hold up a newer iPhone to see a video image of whatever a skier is viewing on the mountain, and tags of nearby trails, restaurants and restrooms digitally pop up on the screen.

Realski 2.0, available this season, packs in more information. It also lets users take screen shots and geotag them.

Need to find that powder stash again? Take a picture and geotag it, so that Realski can point the way back. Afraid of forgetting where the car is parked or how to get to the bar to meet up with buddies later? Take a picture and geotag it. Same with that glove that fell off during a ride on the lift.