Traditional XC ski area snowfarming
A new way to guarantee the early start of the ski season was revolutionized by Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Vermont in 2019. The cross country (XC) ski area partnered with the University of Vermont on a project to develop an innovative snow storage system to guarantee one to three kilometers of skiable snow during November.
The primary challenge of XC ski areas is the weather as they are mostly located in regions of low altitude, high humidity and low latitude which are all bad characteristics for getting natural snow or using traditional snowmaking. Recent machine-made snow technology has become much more efficient, but alpine ski resorts that rely heavily on snowmaking have the benefit of higher altitudes compared to XC ski areas and they have a much larger financial operation to afford the cost of wide-scale snowmaking. Even though snowmaking systems can be expensive there are about 40 XC ski resorts across North America that employ these systems on a small scale.
The goal for an early start to the season is to guarantee programming at a time when demand is high for cross country skiing. Late in the year, the challenge involves consumer interest as skiers mostly prefer to begin spring outdoor sports like bicycling rather than skiing.
Snowmaking piles
The pile and haul method is common for XC ski areas whereby they take snow from a pile (where there is more snow available) and haul it on to the trail. Snowmaking can be done to create a pile in an open area near the lodge. The snow brought to the trails is then groomed with a snowmobile, snowcat or other machinery. With the pile and haul method, most ski areas take existing snow from one location and move it to a place on the trails in areas that are not covered. For example at Jackson Ski Touring in NH (top photo), snow was shoveled and moved from higher elevations and brought to cover a one kilometer trail in the village of Jackson.
When the XC ski area has a snowmaking operation, it can make the snow when it is cold and then spread the snow to the trails. More sophisticated and more expensive snowmaking systems run piping along the trails and blow snow in the corridor at various locations followed by a grooming procedure.
Protecting the snow pile with wood chips
Snowmaking is much more efficient when the temperatures are colder so it makes sense to produce the snow on the coldest days and nights. Making snow in November is iffy because of the uncertainty of temperatures and humidity (snowmaking is best and least costly per the volume of snow produced in the coldest and driest weather). In Europe, snow storing systems have successfully been utilized, but Craftsbury is novel because of its southerly and mild location compared to those areas.
At Craftsbury Outdoors, about 9,000 cubic meters of snow was produced last February in a site that was conducive to storage where melting through the summer’s warmer months would be minimal. The machine-produced snow has much less water content compared to natural snow and thus it resists melting (melts substantially more slowly). New energy-efficient airless snow guns that used between a quarter to a third of the power compared to older model snowmaking guns, were acquired by Craftsbury to make the snow. Craftsbury also generates electricity (solar panels) that is net metered (sold to the power company) and they have a heat recapture unit on the generator to provide heat to dorms that provides housing.
The snow pile was shaped with an excavator to pack it densely and then after waiting for it to transform into corn snow in the springtime, the pile was surrounded with wood chips. A variety of covers were tested to insulate the pile and a white mylar space blanket was stretched across the pile to reflect sunlight.
The results were that about 65% of the snow pile by volume remained (5-6,000 cubic meters of usable snow) and that translates to 2-3 kilometers of trail coverage at 50 cm depth and a few meters wide.
After the snow is dumped on the trails, a snowcat then grooms the snow on the trails to produce skiable trails. This year the operation was interrupted by an early snowstorm that covered the trails. The area had about 25 kilometers of trails open in November. The entire process was outlined and cataloged at the University of Vermont by Professor Paul Beirman and can be viewed at uvm.edu/~snowstor
Working the snow pile
Craftsbury is analyzing the costs of the operation for machinery fuel, staff hours, and so on. The concept has proven that it can guarantee the early season programming, much of which centers around training for advanced athletes but there will be other avenues to be explored for recreational programs. With the continuing onset of climate change, running a XC ski area business has become more of a daunting challenge. The trail coverage is difficult as autumn becomes milder, and there are more rain storms in the winter and more meltdown periods. Ski areas that have spread snow using the old labor-intensive way without snowmaking may want to consider investing in a snowmaking operation if they want to guarantee their operational opening and associated programming.