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BREAKING NEWS  NEWS ARCHIVE ASPEN EXPERIMENTS WITH “SNOW BLANKET” TO PRESERVE PARK FEATURES
October 21, 2008
SAM Magazine —Aspen, Oct. 21, 2008—Mountain operations crews at Snowmass have been experimenting with a product called Ice Protector Optiforce, a “snow blanket” which covers existing snow, insulating and preserving it. Produced by the Swiss flooring firm Landolt and distributed by Eiger International, Ice Protector Optiforce is used in Europe to preserve small areas where snowmaking has not been installed and snow farming isn’t possible.
According to Rich Burkley, Aspen’s general manager of mountain operations, the Aspen Skiing Company is experimenting with the product to see if it can preserve terrain park features such as half pipes and large jumps. Snowmass covered a terrain park jump with the product for the summer, and found that the blanket preserved at least 80 percent of the pile. However, the key, according to both Burkley and mountain manager Steve Sewell, is whether the preserved snow can be groomed and reshaped into new jumps, or remains a block of ice.
Vail Resort’s Chris Jarnot says that VR is looking into testing the product also.
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