Blowing Out the Mice?

[Hawkshot99]

Too bad it's 2/3 of the way across the country but Loveland is making snow.

http://www.skiloveland.com/snowmaking/

Arent you a commercial pilot? When looking at flights alot of them had layovers in Denver.....

 

[gpetrics]

How much DOES it cost to make snow these days? A lot of ski resorts say it is expensive, and I believe them, but as an engineer I'd like to see some hard numbers to understand the magnitude of the cost.

Anyone seen any equations where you can put in the cost per Kwh, air temp, humidity, price of diesel per gallon, gun type, hourly wage, elevation of the gun above the water source (am I leaving out anything?), and click calculate and out pops the cost per cubic yard of snow?

Seems like a resort could write software to calculate the cost benefit analysis of blowing snow on a particular trail on a given night given the current conditions, the trail characteristics (i.e. north facing, width, length, elevation, popularity, etc.), the projected weather forecast, and the number of days remaining in the season. Does something like that exist? I'd hate to think resorts just swag when and where to blow snow with no quantitative data to base the decisions on.

i've always wondered the same thing. i'm sure some of the modern fancy automated snow making systems come with built in software to help quantifying the costs.... but i bet on older systems that are patched together by different line types, compressor farms, and water sources they don't *really* know...

it'd be fascninating to see or help write that software...

 

[SkiDork]

I'm pretty sure Highway Star has some sort of algorithm for this.

 

[speden]

it'd be fascninating to see or help write that software...

That's just what I was thinking. It seems like you could optimize the hell out of it, limited mainly by the unpredictability of the future weather patterns. The software could even tell you when and what type of grooming to apply each night to provide the best possible skiing surface, or when not to bother due to deteriorating weather. Instructions could be automatically emailed to the snowcat drivers on their blackberrys while they're out grooming.

When SpinmasterK mentioned that the ground temperature and temperature of the water supply is a consideration on blowing snow, it made me wonder just how scientific they are about optimizing the costs, and deciding how many and which trails to blow it on.

 

[ERJ-145CA]

Arent you a commercial pilot? When looking at flights alot of them had layovers in Denver.....

I've never had a Denver layover, I once had Salt Lake City in early May but that was a bunch of years ago before I got back into skiing. I'm hoping for a Burlinton layover this winter that's long enough for me to hit Stowe.

 

[thebigo]

There is some interesting information at the link below regarding snow making costs, link stolen from snowjournal.

http://snowgun.com/hkd_energy_analysis.asp

 

[speden]

There is some interesting information at the link below regarding snow making costs, link stolen from snowjournal.

http://snowgun.com/hkd_energy_analysis.asp

Thanks for the link. That's the sort of thing I was wondering. So based on their average cost numbers, if you had a trail that's a mile long and 60 feet wide, and you wanted to blow 12 inches of snow on it, then that would be:

7.27 acre feet of snow needed (i.e. (5280 ft. x 60 ft.) / 43560 sq ft per acre)

For a fan gun with electric costing 15 cents per kwh, it would burn about $2122.00 bucks (or about 35 $60 lift tickets). Not too bad.

For older air/water guns, it would cost you about $11,697 (or about 195 $60 lift tickets). Ouch.

That doesn't take into account any labor costs or that they'd probably blow more than 12" to build a good base. No wonder ski resorts are upgrading to newer technology guns. That's a big difference in cost. The upfront costs and maintenance are much higher on the new technology, but once you have them, it seems pretty economical to blow snow when the opportunity arises.

Looks like I was over thinking the number of important variables in the cost of running the guns. From the data on that link it looks like air temperature and gun type is pretty much what drives power consumption.

 

[WJenness]

Looks like SR might be looking to blow the mice out this weekend...

From an email newsletter I just received:

I’ve got a secret – but don’t tell anyone. If all goes accordingly, we could be firing up the snowguns as early as this weekend! We love fall in New England as much as anyone, but as soon as someone mentions snow, we can’t help but think skiing and riding. If you’re looking for ways to prepare for the coming winter season, or just need a good excuse to celebrate, then look no further than here.

-w

p.s. Don't tell anyone, HAHA! They want everyone to know they're making snow soon.

 

[Vortex]

You beat me to it. I guess you broke the rule not me.:wink:

 

[Vortex]

I think its time to move this page above mtn biking.

 

[BackLoafRiver]

Looks like SR might be looking to blow the mice out this weekend...

From an email newsletter I just received:



-w

p.s. Don't tell anyone, HAHA! They want everyone to know they're making snow soon.

Bah...beat me to it as well. Awesome news!

 

[gpetrics]

now that's what i'm talking about!

let's get people STOKED with snow!