New snowmaking record puts ski areas forward of a storms
Low-energy sleet guns, that work good during aloft temperatures, make good sleet during a most reduce cost.
By Deirdre Fleming dfleming@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Waiting to see sleet out your vital room window before meditative about a ski tour is quick apropos an archaic was of coming a winter season.
Sugarloaf began creation sleet early this month after investing $1 million in 300 low-energy snowmaking guns, bringing a sum series of low-e guns to 450. The ski area skeleton to reinstate a 150 older-model guns before subsequent season.
Photos pleasantness of Sugarloaf
At Sugarloaf, a 45-man organisation starts creation sleet during 28 degrees. Previously, they wouldn’t start sketch H2O from a Carrabassett River until it was 26 degrees.
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Advances in snowmaking that have been embraced by Maine ski areas could shortly make a “no-snow-in-my-backyard” genius a thing of a past. The ability to furnish peculiarity sleet in warmer temperatures while regulating reduction appetite will change normal thinking.
That flourishing view is since Sugarloaf invested $1 million in 300 new low-energy snowmaking guns this year, bringing a sum series of low-e guns to 450. The new guns were paid for in partial with a $300,000 appetite extend from Efficiency Maine after a ski area valid it was creation some-more sleet with reduction appetite than before.
Sugarloaf now has a sum of 600 sleet guns and will reinstate a remaining 150 comparison models subsequent year, pronounced Sugarloaf Mountain Manager Rich “Crusher” Wilkinson.
The new guns make twice a sleet with half a electricity. And they do it in warmer weather. And that’s since twice as many trails are open during Sugarloaf than there were during this time final year, Wilkinson said.
“We’ve had to change a approach we essentially consider about snowmaking. These guns, when it’s 28 to 29-degrees out, we’re regulating 120 guns. It is sleet production, even in comfortable temperatures,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson expects to have 15 sum trails open by this weekend, compared to 8 that were open this weekend final year.
Now a 45-man organisation starts creation sleet during 28 degrees. Before they wouldn’t start sketch H2O from a Carrabassett River until it was 26 degrees.
And final winter, one of a mildest, a towering still had plenty sleet to build a half-pipe that stands 18-feet high and runs 400-feet.
“We wouldn’t have been means to build it but those low-energy guns,” Wilkinson said.
Sugarloaf isn’t a usually Maine ski area upgrading a snowmaking systems with new, low-energy technology.
Sunday River also has invested $1 million in low-energy sleet guns, pronounced mouthpiece Darcy Morse.
Now a Newry towering can run 8,000 gallons of H2O per notation as against to a aged rate of 4,000 gallons of H2O per minute, pronounced Bill Brown, a towering manager.
“Because it’s some-more efficient, it creates us some-more peaceful to spin it on a lot some-more often,” pronounced Brown, who’s been creation sleet for 25 years. “Fifteen years ago, we didn’t consider we’d be means to do what we can do right now. Or we didn’t know how we’d do it.”
It is a assets in appetite costs that concede ski areas to run a guns some-more mostly and in warmer temperatures to make some-more snow, pronounced Ian Jared, a clamp boss during HKD Snowmakers in Natick, Mass., that has sole guns to several Maine mountains,
“You will continue to see some-more fit systems, and those systems will interpret into being means to take advantage (even in warmer weather) to make sleet in a shorter time,” Jared said.
However, Jared pronounced serve technological change will come solemnly since a ski attention is tiny compared to say, a automotive or mechanism industries.
But regulating a aged record that takes twice as prolonged won’t make mercantile clarity during any towering flattering soon.
“You demeanour during a smaller mountains, they roughly can’t means not to invest. The lapse on a investment is so good, a one- to two-year return,” Jared said.
Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted during 791-6452 or at:
dfleming@pressherald.com
Twitter: Flemingpph
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