M – Manmade Snow (or better – Machine Made Snow)
Mary Bellis, in her article about Making Snow, traces the origins of snowmaking in North America. An inventor/engineer by the name of Wayne Pierce was in the ski manufacturing business with three partners, and who formed The Tey Manufacturing Company of Milford, Connecticut in 1947. On the morning of March 14, 1950, he proclaimed “I know how to make snow!” “Pierce came to work on that March morning, with an idea that if you could blow droplets of water through freezing air, the water would then turn into frozen hexagonal crystals, aka snowflakes. Using a paint spray compressor, nozzle and some garden hose, Pierce and his partners created a machine that created snow. The company was granted a basic-process patent in April 1954.”
Conor Dougherty, in his excellent article for the Denver Post last month, and suggestively entitled Resorts battle for best snow job, comments “Manmade snow is no longer just a supplement to what Mother nature provides. It is the main reason why some resorts can open as early as mid-October and stay open with good snow until May”. In Colorado, Arapahoe Basin was the first ski area to open for the 2006-07 season, on Friday October 13th. The traditional race with Loveland ski area to see who could open first was a race between the snowmakers from the beginning, rather than the amount of natural snow that had fallen. Thanks to an arctic cold front, snow was made at full capacity for most of the week prior, in the hope of an early opening.
With environmental and global warming concerns all the talk right now, Dougherty goes on to point out that while natural snow and manmade snow share the same two ingredients – water and cold – one difference is easy to appreciate: the price. “Between labor, water and maintenance, a big resort can spend $1 million a year making snow”, says Jim Horton, GM of New York Snow. A resort can spend about twice as much making snow at 30 degrees than at 20 degrees. But, it’s still cheaper than no snow.
Resorts say all snowmaking operations have to be signed off on by the regulators. Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association says. “If somebody has a snowmaking operation in operation today, the appropriate state and federal authorities have reviewed and approved all of the projects.”
Snowmaking was introduced at Winter Park in 1977 which saved the resort from one of the state’s worst snow years on record. The resort uses Denver Water Board by-pass water for snowmaking so there is no effect on Fraser Valley stream water flows. Current snowmaking on mountain covers 10% of the terrain across 299 acres, and 26 trails.
Racers actually prefer it due to its consistency and the ability to maintain better edging. The have been many World Cup Alpine races where new, natural snow had to be scrapped off downhill courses to “re-” expose the manmade snow underneath! Bottom line, after reading articles today about the total lack of snow in Europe (again), and only 2 weeks away from the Holiday season, I’ll take skiing on manmade snow over no skiing any day.
