An argument for snow making:

No argument...no doubts...snowmaking is very clearly essential to the continued financial viability of snowsports in Scotland. How can it be made into reality not just an ongoing discussion point?
Perhaps Whister would be kind enough to let us have some of their (considerable) portable snowmaking equipment. With 185 inches having fallen there during January 2006 and 299 inches for the season to date they can't have much need for it! Although they do have the foresight to actually have this equipment just in case the snow doesn't arrive naturally (like mid-season last year) and to help get things going early on each season.
There must be literally hundreds of ski areas around the world who would be only to pleased to provide our areas with advice as to the way forward. Some of them must be closer in scale, to what we have here, than the big international areas such as Whistler. I wonder if any of them have been asked? Perhaps this may be a way that contributers to these discussion forums may be able to help in a positive way. Can anyone obtain relevant documentation that may be of use to some/all of our centres in terms of actually getting a decent system installed?
Regards
Olderalan

The following was an answer given to a question asked regarding what would be the best system for an Australian resort..

"From new, I would recommend that water and compressed air mains be installed. At the same time underground power be put into the same trench (with a distance from the pipes to reduce corrosion) at those high use areas where much more snow needs to be made during the season. The rationale behind this is to be able to make snow using air/water equipment in the most marginal conditions at the start of the season and at start and finish of a snowmaking session - then when the conditions improve the fan guns are then started to make cheaper snow. Tower fans are the best but there are few designs that are trouble free as most need defrosting and servicing.

Air/water towers are better than ground, but you need both as the towers are not as flexible as ground guns.

There are several types of 'new' A/W towers. The "low energy" towers have 2 problems when compared with other full flow towers - they do not operate in marginal conditions and there is little control over the snow quality - they are sold on the premise that you do not need so much compressed air to operate them - those areas that regularily test new equipment before buying do not use these towers for the above reasons - snow quality and lower hours. What are you in the business for "saving energy" or making snow for the customers to enjoy. There are 2 areas in Australia where you can see examples which give a comparison of these two differing concepts - which is open earlier, has the better snow and closes later??

If there is a lack of water supply then conventional air/water wins hands down as the good ones are able to precisely control the quality of the snow produced, i.e. 0.3-0.34 relative density (R.D.) for beginner, 0.34-0.36 R.D. for intermediate and 0.36-0.4 R.D. for expert slopes. This way you minimise the free water in the snow - if the density goes above 0.42 then the best air water we have tested loses about 20% of the water put through the gun by draining out. Many fan guns are run at densities of 0.5 and higher where 50% of the stuff falling is free water which will drain out and be lost - on the way will rot the snow underneath. Thus if you are shorrt of water then fans are not the best way to go.

Power is a different thing - fans normally use less power for the same amount of snow made. In the case of air/water you are able to supplement diesel powered compressors where there is a shortage of electric power.

Upgrading an existing system - the best advice is to set up both air/water and fan services so that you can make snow when it is possible and also take advantage of good snowmaking conditions to be able to make bulk cheap snow where it can be used efficiently and/or pushed when it becomes worn or rained out."


I believe this guy owns Woomera Snow Guns based in Australia,

Also when the resorts start putting in snow making, I strongly believe some hefty summer grooming will be needed and beneficial,, if they have to make an extra 30cm of snow just to make cover, for x amount of rocks etc, it will cost more money to produce the snow ,than it would to clear the runs..

Also it takes loads of snow to build parks, and if the parks were all ready carved out the hill, that park would be up and running quick, and pretty easy to maintain, via the time/labour cost to build a park from snow alone.

[forums.asb-alpine.com]



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 21.31hrs Thu 2 Feb 06 by growwild.

Thanks to 'Growwild' for that excellent posting. In my view this is just what we need to be passing on to our snowsport centres. CML will be able to read the post for themselves and take it from there (hopefully!) as will the other centres. Other contributions will be welcomed.

Regards

Olderalan

It looks as if slightly milder temps are thawing the top layer of the ground which is unfortunate with snow now forecast, but while it shouldn't raise ground temperatures much, it once again underlines the options snowmaking provides. A base could have been put down on the frozen ground on key runs keeping it insulated from the milder air and providing an actual base for the real stuff to build on.

Bringing back this old chestnut. But considering the awesome start to the season 5 months ago, and the awesome end (hopefully not for another month!), and the generally cold weather, with few thaws (and none very severe); If the ski areas did have a decent snowmaking system, then we would have been looking at 6 months continuous snow-sports in the Highlands

"6 months continuous snow-sports"

6 months potential perhaps, however, I think there would be doubts over whether there would be sufficient visitor numbers to merit the investment. Just look at the way numbers have fallen in of recent weeks, despite the conditions?

I bet if there was snow like this in Jan/Feb the crowds would be bigger though. Most people are in summer mode now I think

What you are saying seems to make a lot of sense, but do the ski centres have the money, or inclination, to invest extensively in the snow making? OK this winter was cold and dry but quite a few lately have been mild and wet. The Lecht has been snow making this year but only on the beginner runs and has had them open “all winter” (I’m sure Alan will give us the fantasy lift league update as to how many days the robin and wren have been running this year).

The ptarmigan bowl at Cairngorm and the summit runs at Nevis are significantly higher and therefore colder for snowmaking but they are generally open most of the winter anyway. Their would need to be a more significant and serious investment to install snowmaking on the main runs at Cairngorm (and all the other centres) and right now I think that they are more interested in making money out their railway than winter sports. And why not if you have a business why not make money all year round. Nevis seem to do very well out of the bike track and Glen Coe and Shee both have plans to emulate Nevis.

I am however of the opinion that “if you build it they will come” i.e. more guaranteed snow all winter = people will come and ski in Scotland. We all know how good Scotland can be last weekend is a case in point but we have all had days when cover was limited and conditions were poor. At least if the runs are fence to fence you can wrap up warm, put up with the weather and not feel cheated with the cost of the lift pass.

Maybe we are due a few cold winters and the ski centres will see that it may pay to invest - The Lecht seems to think that it’s worth it so why not the rest. Sorry I’m tired now this is my longest post yet.

Andrew

geeks........

thanks for your input romain!

Yes go back to your bed Romain. You won't learn much at school when your tired!!

Just to get the thread, hopefully, back on track here's an interesting page from the ropeways.net website showing the prices of used snowmaking equipment - click here to see snowmaking page. These are real prices for real equipment from a reputable firm.

Now, I'd be very interested to know why Cairngorm can't afford a few thousand quid to buy one or two of these and guarantee some snow and more revenue!

It's a serious point, unless I'm wrong about my commas and full stops in European numerical notation this is not expensive stuff in the scheme of things!!!!

the snow machine is only half the story. unless it's a small portable on the back of a piste-basher with water supply (which, admittedly, might be nice for patching holes), you also have substantial water supply needs. the smallest numbers i saw were 4 or 5 cubic metres (ie, tonnes) of water per hour, at a reasonable pressure. that's the minimum - you'd want ten times then to be running them at capacity.

aside from the cost of building the water infrastructure, these kind of abstraction volumes would also require SEPA registration.

cheers,

-duncan

^ I know it's only part of the story but given the usual dumb silence we get whenever snowmaking is mentioned you'd think they'd have to find millions and move the odd mountain in order to make snowmaking work.

There's already water piped up the mountain so I'd suggest it's not as difficult to get a water supply to the machines as might be imagined. I don't know what SEPA is, can you enlighten me?

The point I ws making though is a valid one I feel; investment in even limited snowmaking is not so very expensive (certainly not expensive when compared to building funiculars for example) and the guaranteed snow that snowmaking brings with it means that you bring in more money from ticket sales.





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 12.40hrs Mon 24 Apr 06 by roga.