Snowmaking and potential opening
Snowmaking and potential opening
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BC Mark 12/19/2012
It looks like our next snowmaking window arrives on Saturday. We will be putting all our guns to work in hopes of opening by Christmas. The window looks brief and the temperatures are going to be fairly marginal during the majority of the cold snap.
Our system was originally built to open 90% of the mountain with 120 hours of snowmaking at 25F Wet Bulb temperatures. This was viewed as a aggressive approach to snowmaking that should serve us well in moderate temperatures. The 2006/2007 season redefined the worst case scenario for a warm winter. As a result we upgraded the system to open 100% of the mountain in 85 to 90 hours of snowmaking at 27F wet bulb. The 2011/2012 season again redefined worst case scenario so we upgraded 21 snow guns to further boost production in marginal temperatures and further decrease the number of ours required to open.
This December has followed a similar trend to last year and the snowmaking windows we have been presented have been miniscule. As we approach this next window we spent $100,000 this morning to add 6 new guns to our fleet and and give us the best opportunity to open some terrain by Christmas. The guns will arrive in time for Saturday snowmaking and hopefully will be just what we need to make the holidays white!
Keep your fingers crossed and think cold thoughts!
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