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May 2007

Pump Up The Volume

This past winter, two Pocono areas proved the value of maximizing their snowmaking capacity.

Written by Jeff Lewis | 0 comment

Considering the balmy temperatures throughout the Pocono Mountains at the beginning of the 2006-07 ski season, ski resorts needed to squeeze every flake possible from their snowmaking plants whenever the opportunity presented itself. Jack Frost and Camelback, among the first to open in the region, were able to do so because of recent investments in their snowmaking systems.

“This industry is all about small snowmaking windows and taking advantage of those windows whenever possible,” says Mark Hufnagle, mountain manager at Big Boulder, Jack Frost’s sister ski area located a few miles away. “This season’s been one of the shortest in terms of windows.”

New technology enabled Jack Frost to more efficiently make snow than ever before. It was first ski area in the region to open, on December 5, and the first to be 100 percent open, on January 20.

“That wouldn’t have been possible without the new system,” contends Jesse Boyd, general manager of the resorts. “This new technology will enable us to make a high quality snow even in marginal weather.”


Jack Frost’s Fan-Based System
Part of that technology is SMI fan guns, similar to the system installed at sister resort Crotched Mountain, N.H. (see “Fan Guns—in the East?” SAM November 2006). Mark Daubert, director of operations at Jack Frost, expects the new system to reduce the number of snowmaking hours from a previous average of 600 to 700 hours per season to 325 hours. “The new fans allow us to get our guns on line faster with less labor,” he says. “We have already realized substantial energy savings by using fan technology with on-board air, thereby not running large air compressors as many hours. The result is twice as much snow in a shorter window.”

The real difference, though, is in how much water you can get on the hill. Jack Frost can now pump 6,000 gpm, a huge amount for a hill with less than 200 acres of snowmaking. “It used to be that 2,000 gpm was a large system,” says Joe Cousins of Torrent Engineering, the company that manufactures the pumping delivery system and controls that feed the Jack Frost guns. “Now we would consider that small. The new norm is 6,000 gpm to 10,000+ gpm. Technology like this is changing the way smaller ski areas are managed. They’re focusing more on the infrastructure and they are doing very well.”

The Jack Frost system employs a pump skid with six 400-horsepower pumps that distribute roughly 1,000 gpm each. Water flow is monitored by a VFD that will kick pumps off and on as needed as the demand for water changes. There are also many safety features built into the system as well.

Torrent utilizes an Allen Bradley programmable logic control system with proprietary software to automatically vary the speed of the lead pump and cycle the other constant speed pumps to maintain constant system pressure and to use only the minimum energy needed to accomplish the required coverage. The system removes the human factor from determining when to run the pumps and when to shut them off.

To start making snow, snowmakers start the 3,000 gpm river pump which in turn feeds the first of the six booster pumps at the maintenance building. The booster pump then charges the feed pipes to the slopes. Depending on snowmaking needs, one to four eight-inch feeder lines are charged with water, and snowmakers then decide which return lines to use. Once the system is charged and the feed lines and returns are at operating pressure, snowmakers start lighting the guns.

As the line pressures draw down, the computerized drive on the booster pump monitors the line pressure. If the system pressure is below the designed operating pressure, then pump 1 ramps up to 1,000 gpm. If the hill is pulling more pressure and flow than 1,000 gpm, the drive on pump 1 checks pumps 2 to 6, determines which pump has the least running time, and starts that second pump. This process continues as needed, up to the maximum pumping capacity—which includes two river pumps (3,000 gpm each) and all six 1,000 gpm boosters.

Electronic monitoring helps to detect problems in remote systems, but the local autonomous controller should detect the problems and deal with them first. “The electronic monitoring should provide the data to tell the human operator what happened and why,” says Cousins. “Only when a system is organized in this manner does it truly become more efficient. If the human operator goes to the bathroom when the bad event occurs, all the remote monitoring in the world won’t keep the system up.”

Snowmakers are still involved, of course. “Our guns are all adjusted by us except for when the new SMI fans can be set to oscillate themselves,” says Daubert.

Cousins says there were doubters throughout the ski industry who believed the massive snowmaking concept wouldn’t make it at a smaller mid-Atlantic ski area. “The main doubt was with large fan gun systems,” explains Cousins. “The Northeast and mid Atlantic states typically favored air/water type systems because that was just the way it was done. Snowmaking started in this area of the country, so they were very hard to convince that tower-mounted fan guns would work just as well, and that the cost of changing would be worth it.”

Today’s philosophy, according to Cousins, is that large-water-capacity snowmaking systems can accomplish coverage goals much quicker, with the much-more-limited windows that snowmakers seem to have now as compared to the past. “You need to have the pumping capacity as well as the means to convert it to snow in marginal conditions,” he says. “This means that you not only have to have the big pumping equipment, but you also have to have the right amount of guns to convert it.”

On average, the overall snowmaking process at Jack Frost and Big Boulder consumes about 75 percent of its total energy usage. However, the new system should allow snowmakers to only blow during daytime peak energy hours in December, then switch to off peak hours in January and February.

“In order to lower costs, we made snow almost exclusively during the night this season and never spiked our demand, “ says Boyd. “However, the new system allowed us to cover much more ground at a faster rate than before, thus our ability to be the first ski area in the region to open.”


Camelback’s Hybrid System
Camelback Ski Area, 20 miles to the east of Jack Frost and Big Boulder, faces the same snowmaking challenges. And much like its neighbors, Camelback was able to withstand the warmer weather at the start of the season and remained open virtually throughout January, a feat that would have been impossible a few years ago.

Using both air/water and airless technology, every trail on the mountain has a combination of different types of air/water guns, depending upon the steepness and width of the trail. Many of the gentler lower trails also have electric receptacles for airless guns.

The new system can also make more snow at higher temperatures. “The installation of the air-efficient guns has raised the temperature where we can maximize our water flow,” says Rich Wiseman, vice president and general manager. Maximum water flow through the pump station in the past was only achievable at about 10 degrees, compared to 18 to 20 degrees today.

Over the last few years, Camelback, like Jack Frost, has increased the amount of water it can pump, to 7,000 gpm. This increase, along with the airless and air-efficient guns, has accounted for a drop in total snowmaking hours. “As our system has become more efficient, to be able to pump more water with the same amount of air we have, we have been able to decrease the amount of snowmaking hours,” says Wiseman. Six years ago, prior to the installation of its new system, Camelback was making snow between 900 and 1,000 hours annually. That number has dropped to 600 hours per year.

A computerized pumphouse ensures constant pressure and flow in the water lines. However, the output on the guns that are not fixed-flow is controlled by a crew of snowmakers. The ski area will typically run 12 snowmakers on each 12-hour shift, including a pump and compressor operator.

Much like Jack Frost, the air compressors and the water pumps consume about 75 percent of Camelback’s power usage in the winter. Even so, says Wiseman, “The newer technology is very energy-efficient and almost runs itself.” But it’s the increased capacity, and the ability to get more terrain open faster, that makes it all worthwhile.