^Sat 14th Jan.

This bottom section of the Gunbarrel from about where the 2 skiers are standing to below the T-bar loading gantry was bare on the Friday, and got passable overnight with the T40 snow gun.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 20.43hrs Fri 4 May 12 by alan.

nice

Did Cairngorm buy that 'reverse hair-dryer', or did they borrow it?

It was on a free trial - I think they shared the transport costs with one of the other areas who also got one on free trial.


Maybe from April on wards Cairngorm should of kept full price ticket with a tenner from each sale going to snow making.

As I understand it, alan's dream gun is this one ...



Maybe one of those could be borrowed to keep the other one company, in a spirit of friendly rivalry!

What is the current view of The Lecht and Glenshee about snowmaking? Both these centres have, as I understand it, bought (rather than borrowed) snow guns. Is it still the view that the energy and other costs associated with snowmaking in Scotland generate sufficient extra ticket revenue before a thaw?

And was the Cairngorm 2011-12 test conclusive in that regard, or is the jury still out?

Well the canons at Glenshee got some good use this season. After a couple of days (and nights) in January the links between the baddoch chair, BA poma, Cairnwell T-bar & Claybokie and even claybokie itself were made skiable again by man made snow following the Christmas thaw.


Snow making at Glenshee on 3rd Febuary.

I believe that glenshee are investing in improving the snow making this summer. They are looking to improve the pumpstation near the road and are going to have some more water outlets near the new chairlift.

Glenshee already have 7 snow cannons, so if they do this, that could be great news.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 19.23hrs Sun 6 May 12 by peaches.

Thats good news about Glenshee, still believe that snowmaking is the way forward for Scotland if they invest in more up to date equipment

i also believe that snow cannons are the future of scottish skiing. I think that glenshee and the rest of them should invest in more cannons. I think glenshee should place some in the cluny area, that alwasy seems to be snowless first

I though it was now up to 8, the original 6 + the new one bought summer 2010 + the one Cairngorm "couldn't get to work".

However, this is great news on three counts:

- They are investing in snow making
- This will nicely complement the new chairlift
- They still have some money to spend on improvements even after this years poor season.


Anybody know how many the Lecht have? I have a suspicion they may be into double figures. It was reported here on this very thread in 2006 [www.winterhighland.info] that they had bought "8 more snow cannons".

It would be nice if GS/lecht could make a bit more noise about snow making from a marketing perspective, Cairngorm seem to have gotten more mileage out of 1 cannon than GS/Lecht get out of having proper (if small) snow making systems.

GS give it a brief mention on the ski area information page and two pages in the photo gallery, but not much else. Assuming the new piping goes in on the Baddoch run, then going from the top of the Claybookie to the bottom of the Baddoch is a 122m vertical with snow making coverage, the only run at the Lecht which is shown on the map as having full length coverage is the Eagle, which has a vertical of about 90m. Even if the Lecht can also cover the full length of the Snowy Owl/Grouse runs, that's still only 100m vertical, so GS could probably claim the longest vertical with snow making.

The Lecht does a bit better marketing wise, showing Snow making on the piste map (GS used to do this, but the symbols have been removed from the latest version) and a comment "Snow cannons on most runs. Largest snow making system in Scotland" on one of the sub pages. It also comes up on the engineering page and the link too this page.

A final reckoning of the snowmaking model for the Sheiling Trainer Tow that has been running through this season. As has been the case throughout the graph below is based on accumulated machine made snow depth (ignoring natural snow inputs) on the Sheiling Trainer Tow run on CairnGorm based on 1,2,3 or 4 Ratnik Sky Giant IV snow guns.

The scenario used to generate this graph involves modeling based on using all available hours until a soft cap target of 120cm of accumulated machine made snow is reached, above which 1/4 of available snow making hours would be used up to an absolute hard cap limit of 200cm.

The question came up post March, how much snow would have been needed to get through the March mega thaw. A 5th scenario was thus modeled, also on the basis of 4 Ratnik Sky Giant IV guns, but used a single hard cap of 200cm accumulated machine made snow.

Accumulated Machine Made Snow in cm on the Sheiling Trainer Tow area of the Carpark Run:



Across the 5 scenarios the respective number of days of skiable cover are as follows:
1 Gun 27days
2 Guns 84days
3 Guns 135days
4 Guns 159days
4 Guns (alternative scenario) 173days

As already mentioned earlier in this thread prior to early April there had been 14 days that could genuinely be described as skiable to the Daylodge, where the cover was such that it would be possible to prepare the snow with a small piste basher. There were several days of riding to the Daylodge in both April and May(!!) but it was to a varying extent in the 'combat riding' category, esp lower down.

Just to put in context the absolutely exceptional weather conditions mid-season, the ablation rate modeled from SSC data on 28th February 2012 was virtually equal to that on Tues 22nd and Wed 23rd May!

Figures from the SSC AWS indicate 973 hours with a wetbulb equal to or below the -1.3°c start up temperature of the Ratnik Sky Giant IV Gun used above. use of the new multi-stage Ratnik Sky Giant VI gun with a startup temperature of -1.1°c wetbulb would increase that to 1054hours of potential snow making.




Edited 2 times. Last edit at 00.50hrs Tue 29 May 12 by alan.

Attachments: sm-sh-2012-05-25.png (135kB)  

Smaller graph to fit forum.

Attachments: sm-sh-2012-05-25sm.png (186kB)  

?????????

[www.buccerisnowmaking.com.au]

Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.41hrs Sat 27 Oct 12 by alan.

Attachments: robin.jpg (74kB)  

I think this picture gives you a good idea of the coverage needed for a slope top to bottom



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 09.53hrs Mon 29 Oct 12 by daveski.

Attachments: snow guns.jpg (23kB)