8 minute read
Endless Winter
Endless Winter
Snow-making and grooming extend ski season
By Brion O’Connor
With apologies to Charles Dickens, spring skiing can be “the best of times, and the worst of times” for New England outdoor enthusiasts.
Bluebird days with ample snowpack can offer a truly transcendent day. But patches of dirt and rock, and drenching rains, might dampen the spirits of the most diehard winter devotee.
More and more, an enjoyable spring skiing (and snowboarding) season depends upon a modern snow-making system and a top-flight fleet of grooming machines, plus dedicated crews to run both.
The good news for skiers and snowboarders who can’t stand the thought of putting their boots and boards away early is that New Hampshire ski areas have acknowledged the reality of climate change, understand the trend toward warmer winters and have invested accordingly.
“Anytime you operate a ski area 60 miles from the Atlantic Ocean in southern New Hampshire, the odds of a snowy winter — out of the gate — are elusive,” says Kris Blomback, general manager of Pats Peak in Henniker.
To succeed as a ski area in the Northeast, he says, “it’s imperative that you have snowmaking coverage that exceeds 75 percent of your terrain.”
“New England has always been difficult to operate a ski area as, usually, we’re on the Mason-Dixon line, weather-wise,” says Blomback, adding that Pats Peak has poured more than $4 million into its snow-making infrastructure over the past decade.
In reality, most skiers and snowboarders don’t think about, and don’t fully appreciate, the effort required to produce a quality snow cover. But without investing in snow-making and grooming, ski areas — Alpine and Nordic — face daunting challenges, even with those advancements.
“(Snow-making) is not only important for early season operations, to get open in a timely manner to be prepared for the first bread-and-butter period of the season — the Christmas holiday week — but it is also critical to recovering from adverse weather events like we saw this December,” says Thomas Prindle, marketing manager for King Pine/Purity Springs Resort in Madison. “Not only does man-made snow generally hold up better to the typical New England rain-thaw-freeze events, but experienced groomers are able to ‘farm’ the product of snow to further aid the snowpack to survive those weather events and rejuvenate to a quality product more quickly.”
New Hampshire also benefits from hosting the United States headquarters of two Italian companies, DemacLenko snow-making equipment and Prinoth grooming machines. Situated on the outskirts of Concord, the sister companies share the commitment of Granite State ski areas to a superior snow surface.
“New Hampshire has some of the most diverse terrain in the country,” says Mark Palmateer, eastern regional manager for Prinoth. “We’re uniquely situated to have influence from both ocean and highalpine arctic environments.
“Ski areas such as McIntyre and Pats Peak are heavily influenced by the Atlantic Ocean, and then we have areas to the north such as Wildcat, Cannon and Bretton Woods that are higher in elevation and, although no less challenging, see a different weather pattern completely,” says Palmateer. “Prinoth has always had a game plan for this and is ideally suited to tackle the challenges New Hampshire offers us.”
The idea, and goals, of ski areas and companies like DemacLenko and Prinoth are simple: Make the most of the snow you get, or make your own.
“Having the ability to capitalize on the good-weather windows for making snow is key for success,” Palmateer says. “You have to take advantage of what Mother Nature gives you for weather, no matter how little it may be in a given season, and get the snow piled up while you can.”
While Prinoth equipment is designed to groom, DemacLenko machines are responsible for supplementing any natural snowfall. Much of the snow at ski areas today is man-made, produced by a small army of snow guns spread across the trails.
“Not knowing what the weather will do in spring, ski areas bank on having machinemade snow to continue their season well into spring,” says Craig Raphaelson, a former snow-making manager who is Demac Lenko’s Northeast sales manager. “We don’t get the amount of snow like the resorts out west, so being reliant on snow-making is paramount.
“Having snow-making allows the ski area to provide a skiing product that will withstand droughts, temperature fluctuations and rain events,” says Raphaelson. “The snow that’s being made is very durable, much more durable than natural snow.”
Even last March, when the weather gods treated New Hampshire to a bountiful snowfall, resorts continued to make and groom their snowpack. The result was more than 60,000 skier visits to the state for the season, says Tim Smith, president and general manager of Waterville Valley Resort.
“The really cool thing is our snow-making is getting so good, and our grooming is getting so good, that we don’t have the Backyard Effect,” says Smith, referring to the phenomenon where skiers won’t travel to ski areas because there’s no snow in their backyard. “Even when we have brown in Boston, they’re still coming north, because they know we have skiing. That’s because of that type of technology (at Prinoth and DemacLenko). Those machines changed our industry.”
In the past two decades, DemacLenko and other companies have consistently generated improvements — including superior nozzles and barrels that yield better coverage — that make snow-making more efficient, and by extension, more affordable. For example, in the early days of snow-making, air/water snow guns used between 500 to 1500 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air.
“Now the usage is averaging 60 CFM,” says Raphaelson. “This gives ski area operators the ability to run more equipment using the same number of air compressors. Or if operators want to run the same number of air/water snow guns, they can eliminate an air compressor, saving the ski area money.”
Producing snow, however, is only half the battle. “Farming” snow is, in all likelihood, a term that’s foreign to most skiers and snowboarders. But to snow operations crews, it’s essential. The term refers to the practice of grooming available snow — natural and man-made — so that it lasts longer.
“Prinoth’s modern grooming equipment can spread and process a much greater quantity snow at a much lower cost and with far fewer emissions or environmental impact (compared to) previous generations of machines,” says Palmateer. “Although our new groomers are high-horsepower, high-production machines, exhaust emissions have been reduced by over 90 in relation to engines produced 10 years ago.
“Our machines and tillers — the implement on the back that leaves the beautiful corduroy — are produced based on North American design and geared toward leaving the best possible finish,” he says. “Resorts have to be able to respond to ever-smaller weather windows and capitalize on efficiencies found in modern equipment to provide a consistent product for their customers.”
These grooming machines allow a snow operations crew to “farm” or “harvest” snow from areas with adequate or excess snow depth, and move it to places that are prone to melting, creating bare spots, says Palmateer. The results are tangible.
“Probably the single biggest improvement in snow-grooming has been the advent of the power tiller, which can take a hard crusty surface after a flash freeze and grind it into a skiable, uniform surface,” says Blomback. “The machines are getting bigger, more fuel-efficient, and in general you can do more with less.”
With weather patterns becoming even more unpredictable, and winter temperatures generally getting warmer, ski area managers and owners need to be vigilant about investing in the new technologies, including above-freezing snowmaking systems.
“Winters that would have been an unmitigated disaster in the past are now mere nuisances, and ones that you can muscle through, provided you have a robust snow-making system,” Blomback says.
“If the owners of these properties adhere to some basic tenets, such as constant reinvestment in the physical plant, they’ll be in decent shape,” he says. “I’ve never seen a ski area with robust snow-making capability go out of business.”
