Jay Peak and Mt. Snow, Vt., have taken a leaf from the Fire Brigade’s book by giving youngsters rides on snow groomer vehicles.
Up to four machines are required at Jay Peak during busy ski weeks when as many as 50 young guests take 10-minute rides on Thursday afternoons after skiing. A parent accompanies each child, who sits on the adult’s lap in the cab, while the groomer tills a gentle novice slope. To remember the occasion, each participant is given a Polaroid snapshot with the BR400-Plus in the background.
“Three years ago we developed this program to capitalize on one of our natural attributes and to provide guests with another interesting activity,” says marketing director Conrad Klefos. “It’s unique. The parents like it as much as the kids.”
Riding the Big Orange is the highlight of Mt. Snow’s Teddy Bear Weeks, which are held four times during the winter. Tuesday afternoons, kids ages five to twelve take a five-minute ride on flat terrain around the base area. Although this highly visible demonstration is restricted to youthful ski weekers, older youngsters are seldom turned away.
“The kids are in awe of the huge Pisten Bullys with their flashing lights, buttons and levers,” says customer services director Suzanne Bauer. “It teaches kids more than just skiing, it teaches them about the mountain. They get a different view of what happens at a ski area.”
Liability has not been a problem at either area. “We are extremely careful about loading the children and practice safety first at all times,” says PR director Laurie Croot of Mt. Snow.
For the past seven years, Mt. Snow has worked with a local school on science projects. The subject is snowmaking and it is learned on tours at the mountain.
Tours of the snowmaking facilities are tailored to the age groups, but all visitors start in the control room where they see flashing lights, compressors, pipes, mountain graphics and computers. Snowmaking supervisor Matt Reeder uses a spray bottle to illustrate how the expelled mist freezes and becomes snow.
Outdoors, the youngsters watch as compressed air is slowly added to a water-filled snowgun so they can visualize the air-to-water relationship required in snowmaking. Suddenly the pressure mounts and the children squeal with delight as they are engulfed in the blizzard of snow. Then they realize there is nothing artificial about machine-made snow.
At Butternut Basin, Mass., CEO Channing Murdoch started to do for the public, what he’s been doing for friends and special groups for years. This season he began offering regularly-scheduled tours of the resort’s snowmaking facilities.
“We’ve seen a growing interest in Butternut by locals since we started the free ski days a few years ago,” says Murdoch. “With the lack of natural snow the past four years, people want to know how we make the product they’ve been skiing on and I want to show them.”
Office personnel scheduled tours on weekdays early in the season when snowmaking runs full bore. To watch bare ground disappear under a blanket of machine-made snow is a picture that saves thousands of words.
Murdoch says he is not concerned about liability. He points out, “Though the noise of the compressors is outrageous, the area is immaculate.” The grooming equipment and attachments housed in the same building are also of interest.
Just as guests meet for ski school, they await their snowmaking tour guide at a time and place posted on Butternut bulletin boards. Murdoch says the tours are limited, but the few interested people who take them go home and talk about it.
Opera buffs go backstage, children visit firehouses, connoisseurs frequent wineries, gourmets taste-test food and now skiers can watch computers make snow.
“The more they see of what the ski area does for them — training, ski patrol, risk management, grooming, snowmaking — the more comfortable skiers feel,” says Murdoch.
