SNOWMAKING — Amplification on Mt. Mansfield installation
A long and interesting letter of amplification came from Peter Alford, whose installation at Stowe, Vt. was one of those covered in the July issue of SAM. The article had pointed out that the high cost/acre involved in Phase I would be reduced when the system is expanded, and Alford corroborates this, saying, “the ultimate cost/acre will be between $16,800 and $17,200.”
Alford ascribed additional reasons for the high cost of the installation: the consistently tough terrain, including the Nose Dive, Lift Line, National and North Slope; the retroplan needed to integrate the new system with the old installation on Spruce; and also the determination of Stowe’s management to make it all environmentally sound. “In spite of the higher price that had to be paid, management put environmental quality in a very high priority position throughout the design and development. The ultimate cost may be considered high by some standards; but on the other hand, so is the technical/environmental quality of the installation.”
Alford also disputes the suggestion made in the SAM article that totally automated systems are “questionable from a cost-efficiency point of view,” pointing to the human element that can induce costly equipment failures. “Usually, it only requires one ‘forgot-to-open’ or ‘forgot-to-drain-that-section’ to result in the sort of damage (split pipes, burned out motors, damaged pump shafts etc.) plus loss of revenue to justify the higher capital costs initially needed for the totally automated system.”
Finally, Alford agrees with SAM that snowmaking remains an art. “It always has been,” writes Alford, “is and always will be that. However, current technology, automation and sophisticated controls are the tools that make the ‘artist’s’ job much easier.”
SNOWMAKING — A clarification on the Whiteface Mountain design
With regard to the design of the snowmaking system at Whiteface that held the world’s attention at the Lake Placid Olympics, we said there was “plenty of glory to be generously shared by a lot of people.” And we meant it.
But, we omitted some details, which we now include for purposes of amplification and clarification, and also to help readers who may be confused by accurate, but seemingly conflicting claims for authorship of the design.
As best we can reconstruct the events of 1975, a firm of consulting engineers, Vollmer Associates, had a contract with New York State calling for study, plans and design involving three aspects of preparing for the Olympics: electrical needs, a ski lift requirement and the design and preparing for bid of a snowmaking system. Vollmer, in turn, not having this expertise internally, signed a subcontract with Larchmont Engineering to prepare the snowmaking design.
Officially—and as far as the state is concerned—the plans that went to bid were Vollmer’s, even though they were based on a design supplied by Larchmont, and signed by John Mathewson, then affiliated with Larchmont as an independent contractor.
