Following industry standards, we report a base of 18" when the majority of skiable terrain is on manmade (snowmaking) snow. It is assumed that at least 18" of artificial snow is present on these trails even when the natural snow base is less than 18".
Even in early season, ski patrol still records natural settled base for our records, but when most of the open terrain is on manmade snow, we report 18" since that is what our customers will be skiing on.