The science of snowmaking at Blue Mountain Resort.
words :: Carl Michener // photos :: Kristin Schnelten
In Ontario, getting first tracks almost always means tearing down unblemished corduroy. Some mornings it’s got an icy crust, on others it’s so soft it’s almost slushy and on the most memorable days it’s just right: firm, smooth and holds an edge like nothing else.
If you ever wondered how that corduroy magically appears morning after morning, whether the darkness brought a blizzard or a monsoon, here’s the skinny.
It starts with hundreds of elves with little shovels. They live in burrows in the trees between ski runs and they—okay, no it doesn’t, as fun as that idea might be. That magical morning ‘roy starts with a dedicated team of snowmakers who toil night and day, mostly at night when temperatures plummet and slopes are deserted.
That magical morning ‘roy starts with a dedicated team of snowmakers who toil night and day, mostly at night when temperatures plummet and slopes are deserted.
At Blue Mountain Resort, automated systems enable snowmakers to activate dozens of guns at once with the push of a button, allowing teams to cover slopes quickly as conditions allow. “It used to take hours to turn on that many guns manually,” explains Andrew Garbutt, director of golf, grounds and slope maintenance. “Now, it’s all about optimizing every minute we have in those smaller cold windows.”
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While automation has drastically reduced the physical labour involved, it hasn’t eliminated the need for skilled snowmakers. The job requires constant monitoring and adjusting, especially as temperatures fluctuate. Some snow guns can make snow at -2.5 C, while others require -4 C to -5 C.
One of the most critical tasks that snowmakers have is controlling the density of the snow that their guns produce. Snowmakers can change the water-to-air ratio in each gun to produce either wet, dense snow or drier, powdery snow, depending on conditions. Wet snow forms a durable base, while drier snow creates a more skier-friendly surface. Today’s machine-made snow is often indistinguishable from the real stuff.
Snow guns have become intrinsic to skiing in southern Ontario. There was a time when they were used to fill in a few bare patches between snowfalls. Now the challenge isn’t just about filling gaps between dumps, but about creating a snow base from scratch.
As ski seasons in Ontario have become more unpredictable, advanced snowmaking systems are absolutely essential to consistent, quality snow cover—especially during El Niño winters like last year’s. “We used to get -7 C or -10 C for extended periods of time,” says Garbutt. “Now it could be 24 hours.”
With shorter and less-predictable cold snaps, snowmaking teams need to be agile and quick. That means better equipment and shorter prep times.
Water is pumped into subterranean pipes that extend to the top of the slopes, pressurized to 600 pounds psi. That’s about six times the pressure of your average firefighter hose. Ka-pow!
Back in the 1970s, it took half a day or longer to drag widely spaced snow guns into place, hook them up and turn them on. In 1996, Blue Mountain took a major step forward by installing an automated snowmaking system. Snow guns could be turned on and off remotely, allowing the team to respond quickly to cold snaps and maximize snow coverage. Today, Blue Mountain has a total of 850 snow guns. They’re tightly packed, with the distance between them shrinking from 150 to 300 feet apart in the ‘90s to an average of 80 feet today. This incredible number of guns can produce lots of snow very quickly, and with good coverage. Now groomers can simply knock the tops from mounds covering the slopes rather than move big piles of snow onto bare patches.
“With the snow guns we have, we can blanket Smart Alec with around a metre of snow in 48 to 72 hours, given the right conditions,” says Garbutt. In mid-November, Garbutt’s snowmaking team of six was already busy during the wee hours. “If we can make snow, we’re making snow,” says Garbutt. “When we get a 24-hour cold snap at minus seven, we go as hard as we can.” If you ever wondered why snow guns are active in the middle of the day when you’re out skiing, there’s your answer: There’s no way around it.
Snowmaking starts with water—lots of water. Blue Mountain’s comes from a large cistern on the property as well as from nearby ponds at Monterra Golf, which are in turn fed by a pipeline from Georgian Bay. Water is pumped into subterranean pipes that extend to the top of the slopes, pressurized to 600 pounds per square inch (psi). That’s about six times the pressure of your average firefighter hose. Ka-pow! Eight pumphouses and dozens of water lines power the resort’s system of snow guns stationed across Blue Mountain’s 360 acres of skiable terrain.
At about 2.5 guns per acre, Blue Mountain’s runs are quickly covered with a fairly uniform distribution of snow. But there are still areas where sled guns need to be pulled into place, and some runs aren’t serviced at all. The goal is to continue refining and expanding the system for total coverage.
Since ski-hill grooming began, it has pretty much always involved huge bulldozer-like machines pushing snow uphill, downhill and across. While that hasn’t changed, there’s less guesswork now. Back in the day, great grooming depended to a large extent on how well machine operators knew their terrain. That way, they could avoid scraping snow off the crests of hills (remember those long brown streaks?) and building two metres of depth into the natural dips of a run. Now, onboard systems like SNOWRIGHT use GPS to show groomer operators the depth of snow in real time. This helps them to keep a uniform depth—Blue Mountain aims for one metre—and saves on both snowmaking and grooming.
Like many southern Ontario ski hills, Blue Mountain continues to invest in snowmaking infrastructure. Its goals are total slope coverage, consistent snow from the start to the end of each season, better water management and better energy efficiency. Things like variable-frequency drives for compressors and pumps and lower-energy snow guns are all potential ingredients in reducing the environmental impact of snowmaking without sacrificing snow quality.
So that’s the skinny on snowmaking. Next time you hit the corduroy, think of all the work and dedication that goes into making it happen. And show those elves some love!
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