Unquestionably, grooming helped make the ski season possible last year. The East and the Midwest had sparse snowfalls mixed with rain and the Rockies had light snow followed by warm spells. But at many areas the precious snowflakes were combed and brushed like a fine Oriental rug, the warp and woof of each trail carefully checked as machines plied the surface.
At first skiers didn’t believe the snow condition reports until they tried it. After they had, they came back and they brought more skiers. Even with the admittedly poor conditions some ski areas—Hunter Mt., N.Y., Bromley, Vt., Gunstock, N.H. and Winter Park and Vail, Colo., to name a few—set new records in lift ticket sales. Others declined. The difference was grooming and snowmaking.
“We can produce good skiing from anything except blue ice,” says Dave Buckman of Gunstock. “A well-groomed area depends on the priority of management and how well the crews work the snow.”
With the results from last year, it’s hard to grasp how young the grooming or “snow farming,” concept is. Steve Bradley is credited with starting it all in the early 1950’s at Winter Park, Colo. “Using shovels and packing on skis seemed fairly impractical,” he says. “I could see that a few skiers could product a lot of moguls and in the future, as we got more skiers, we would get even more moguls.”
Bradley combined a crank-operated blade and a roller into a device that was piloted down the mountain by his crews. The object was to chop off the unwieldly bumps and then pack the loose snow behind. These 900-pound behemoths were retired about the time that treaded vehicles began to negotiate the slopes. They were able to tow around one or a pair of heavy rollers to soften up the snows, but this was still regarded as a desperate move, for it wasn’t easy to get up and down a mountain.
The second event was the sophistication of the grooming tools and attachments with the use of hydraulics, both for maneuvering and for creating forces to work on the snow surface. Today, the area operator has a nearly limitless selection of accessories for his grooming needs. Whatever exotic names they go by, these devices are designed to do one or several of four main jobs: break up hard surfaces, cut moguls, push snow around and pack loose snow.
TO BREAK UP HARD SURFACES
Last year the evidence was on the balance sheet for those areas that had invested in vehicles and accessories. With a new record—25 per cent ahead of the previous year—Gunstock is a good example of how grooming can work for an area as well as for the skiers who go there.
Gunstock owns two Powdermakers (one with a blade and one with a scarifier), five Catamounts, six chain drags, one Hard-Pak Pulverizer, five rollers, and four blades. To tow this array, they use two Thiokols, three Tuckers and one bulldozer. All that for 180 acres of skiable terrain. And this summer they completed a new garage to house the assemblage.
Buckman says his crews groomed every day last season, usually starting at one or two in the morning. They did the beginner and ski school sections every day and then covered one-half of the rest of the mountain, so that there was a completly new skiing surface every two days. This always left some moguled slopes for the hot shots and even after a snow fall there was some powder on a few trails.
Costs? The estimate for labor and equipment depreciation and maintenance came to a whopping $320 a day last year. Over a season of 115 days, that’s a lot of Oriental rugs.
“Skiers aren’t too loyal, you know,” philosophizes Buckman about the costs. “There are enough ski areas—they have a choice. Let’s say we’ve tried to help them make the choice.”
Winter Park also set a modest record in ticket sales—up a few percentage points from previous years—but with the poor snowfalls and a season that was about 20 days shorter than usual, this was nothing short of phenomenal. In contrast to the East, the accessories at Winter Park emphasize the packing jobs: four mogul planers, six wide rollers, and another half dozen or so homemade “dressing” tools such as chain drags.
The difference in grooming needs, says Bradley, is not in the snow itself—Eastern snow is usually cold and dry when it falls—but in the moist atmosphere into which it falls. “The rapid changes in weather in New England produce ice and hard surfaces,” he says. “In the Rockies, the air is dryer and there’s almost no rain. The result is they need more chewing implements in the East. We need more packing and rolling devices.”
Then, in the late 1960’s, two things happened: one, towing equipment grew in power and in track width, allowing it to haul bigger, heavier machinery up and down steeper trails—and to do it faster than ever before.
The Winter Park crews are out almost every day working on some part of the area’s 400 acres. After a snowfall they tend to avoid or delay packing some of the expert slopes, according to Bradley. “Packing after a snow fall is most important for beginners and intermediates,” he says. “We know from statistics they get hurt after a slope is partially skied out, so we pack it first.”
Even with the recent developments in grooming attachments, Bradley sees even greater potential in what can be done. “The objective is to present a skiable, inviting surface to be used soon after it is worked,” he says. “What tools you use depends on the snow conditions. In the future I can see a time when each accessory will have a specific function for specific snow conditions.”
Today, savvy mountain managers who have an array of equipment to draw upon, do some selection according to specific snow conditions and most alter, customize or invent their own grooming attachments.
Some area operators say that speed is even more important than the ability to deal with specific snow conditions. These area men feel that doing several of the jobs with combinations of equipment is the way of the future.
Whatever direction snow grooming is going, it’s a far cry from the shovel and man-drawn packers of a few years ago. Snow farming, as many say who have been at it in recent seasons, is the surest way they know of cultivating a healthy crop of skiers.
Directory of Accessory Suppliers
- Brodie Mt. Ski Area, Route 7, New Ashford, Mass. 01237. Hard-Pak Pulverizer.
- Brooks Welding Service, Box 225, Ketchum, Idaho 83340. Sun Valley Snow Mogul cutter.
- Bombardier Ltd., Valcourt, Quebec. Bombardier rollers.
- Bullard Products, Inc., North Hyde Park, Vt. 05665. Trak-Pak snow plane.
- Cushman Motors, 900 N. 21st St., Lincoln, Neb. 68501. Mini Powder Maker, Mini Snow Plane.
- Ed Gil Corp., P.O. Box 791, Tuxedo, N.Y. Sno Roller, Sno Carpet drags.
- Fuerst Brothers, Rhinebeck, N.Y. 12572. Flexible Tine Harrows.
- Howard Rotavator, Harvard, Ill. Rotavator.
- John Deere & Co., John Deere Rd., Moline, Ill. 61265. Wide-track dozer with blade.
- Larchmont Engineering, 11 Larchmont La., Lexington, Mass. Rotary Snow Conditioner, Rollers.
- Madson Manufacturing Co., 103 N. Stevens St., Rhinelander, Wisc. 54501. Trail Groomer.
- Maxey Manufacturing Co., P.O. Box 2001, Fort Collins, Colo. Snow Mover.
- Reynolds & Son, Inc., 84 N. Main St., Barre, Vt. Catamount Slope Conditioner.
- Ski Facilities, Inc., 2740 Fourth Ave. So., Seattle, Wash. Mogul Cutter.
- Thiokol Chemical Corp., P.O. Box 407, Logan, Utah 84321. Mogul Planer, Compactor Bar, Snow Plow.
- Tucker Sno-Cat Corp., Medford, Oregon 97501. Mogul Groomer.
- Valley Engineering, Auburn, Maine 04210. Powder Makers, Disc Scarifier, Snow Plane, U-Blades.
- West Mountain Sales, Inc., Corinth Rd., Glens Falls, N.Y. Sno-Grader.
