Winter is here
It's been a long time coming, but Mother Nature has finally delivered the winter we've been waiting for here at Snowriver. What a change it's been from last month when we saw an average high in the mid-thirties down to an average high of 19.9 degrees so far for January. The past two weeks have been incredibly productive for our snowmaking team and the natural snowfall has allowed us to begin opening up some of our non-snowmaking terrain.
As we wrap up our snowmaking efforts for the season, I'm excited to see the forecast warming slightly to provide us all with comfortable skiing temperatures for the next few weeks. Conditions are fantastic and the temps are rising, a perfect recipe for fun times at Snowriver! Read on for an update on snowmaking progress and our tentative plan for terrain openings over the next week.
Wrapping Up
The past seven days have been incredible for snowmaking production. Many days our highs were in the single digits and our lows dropped below zero. This allowed our team to max out our snowmaking system, with every pump running wide open and every valve on every gun open. We were operating at max capacity for the entire week and by the size of the piles you wouldn't doubt it. We finished making snow for Flow Park and Nimbus before moving on to Stormfront and Elkhorn. Stormfront is likely going to wrap up by Monday morning, but we'll keep the guns blowing over in Bear Creek until we run out of cold on Tuesday morning.
By the time Tuesday's warm temps roll into town, we'll have finished making snow on all of our terrain that's outfitted with snowmaking infrastructure. This is a milestone that we'd typically expect to reach by Christmas, but as we all know, this was no ordinary season. I'm so thankful for our dedicated team that's worked around the clock for over two months now. Snowmaking isn't easy. It's a constant challenge with continual problem-solving required to keep things moving along. Hat's off to this team for giving us a season to be proud of!
Bear Creek, Coming Soon
Most of our terrain is covered with robust snowmaking capabilities, but much of the terrain in the Bear Creek area requires the help of Mother Nature and Sister Superior. Our snowmaking infrastructure allows us to make snow on the area shaded in blue on the map below:
We've currently got 4 snowguns running on Family X, making as much snow as we can to build an awesome course with banked turns and rollers for the whole family. Once we're done there, we'll flip our equipment over to the other side of the trees to make snow on the steepest portion of Buffalo. Fortunately, we've already recieved enough snow to make the top and bottom of these runs skiable, so as soon as we make enough for the headwalls we'll be ready to open.
On the trails that have no snowmaking at all, we utilize a process called track packing to establish a groomable base. The snowcat operators drive around with their implements up in the air, allowing the tracks to pack down the snow. This accomplishes a few key things:
- Compacts the snow and helps firm it up so skis won't cut down to dirt as easily
- Pushes frost down into the ground, helping it freeze up and stoping the snow from melting from underneath.
- Creates a rough surface that catches blowing and drifting snow, increasing depth and building a better base.
It's a very effective method of capturing the snow we receive and making the terrain skiable as fast as possible. The photo below was taken on January 15th after the Bear Creek terrain received its first pack of the season.
After another round over the weekend, things are looking even better. The next photo, taken 1/21, clearly illustrates just how well this works as the run has been wind buffed with manmade snow (greyish color) blowing in from the neighboring trail.
I'm hopeful that this pod will open for skiing on Friday, January 26th with Deer Track, Running Bear, and Family X. Keep an eye on the daily snow report for the official announcement. If all goes according to plan, by next weekend I project we'll have nearly 90% of our primary terrain open and 75% of all terrain including glades.
I've been fielding quite a few questions on my favorite area of the hill, the East T. Unfortunately it will take a bit more natural snow to be able to open. The terrain is much rougher, meaning we need a few extra snowfalls before we take the cats over there to begin track packing. Keep up the good work on the snow dances and rest assured that when we can get it open we will!
All my best,
-Benjamin
