PATS PEAK Capital Improvements for 2010/2011

[bobbutts]

Link: http://www.patspeak.com/pr_improvements.htm

Highlights: Automated guns on Twister trail, New Park Groomer.

 

[billski]

that's odd bobbutts. I did a full AZ search on pats peak and pat's peak and could not find this thread. I appreciate the iteration.

 

[neil]

What do they mean by automated snowmakers? Are these guns that will turn themselves on when temps reach a certain point?

 

[billski]

What do they mean by automated snowmakers? Are these guns that will turn themselves on when temps reach a certain point?

I know nothin about snowmaking automation, but I'd bet the ground crew would love to see these things be able to re-point themselves by remote control when the winds change.

 

[dmc]

What do they mean by automated snowmakers? Are these guns that will turn themselves on when temps reach a certain point?

Hunter Mtn has them on a couple trails - pretty cool.. They've been around forever.

 

[thetrailboss]

Great to hear! :beer:

 

[speden]

The website says: "The Peak will be the first resort in North America to operate our new HKD Auto-Hydrant, which will be coupled to our patented SV-10 Tower Snowgun." and "The fully automatic Twister trail will allow them to dust the trail nightly with fresh snow."

They make it sound like the computers will figure out when it's best to make snow and will just kick on without human intervention. Could be nice if it works in practice. Have to wonder if they will be smart enough to groom the trail prior to the nightly dusting rather than after.

I guess Pat's will continue to be the first to get 100% open in NH.

 

[bobbutts]

100% claim

I guess Pat's will continue to be the first to get 100% open in NH.

They say 100% yet usually still have (marked on map) glade runs closed . Kind of makes me crazy.

 

[speden]

They say 100% yet usually still have (marked on map) glade runs closed . Kind of makes me crazy.

I kind of give them a pass on that. Hardly anyone blows snow on glade trails and Pat's probably does more of that than most places. Plus I don't think glades matter much to most of their target customers. I've never ventured into what I guess they call the Hurricane glades, and they usually seem to be closed when I've been there. They do have some quasi glade sections scattered around, with very widely spaced trees. Usually those have pretty good cover even when most other places have all their glades closed.

 

[bigbob]

The website says: "The Peak will be the first resort in North America to operate our new HKD Auto-Hydrant, which will be coupled to our patented SV-10 Tower Snowgun." and "The fully automatic Twister trail will allow them to dust the trail nightly with fresh snow."

They make it sound like the computers will figure out when it's best to make snow and will just kick on without human intervention. Could be nice if it works in practice. Have to wonder if they will be smart enough to groom the trail prior to the nightly dusting rather than after.

I guess Pat's will continue to be the first to get 100% open in NH.

Kinda like a lawn sprinkler system that runs when it's raining?

 

[millerm277]

What do they mean by automated snowmakers? Are these guns that will turn themselves on when temps reach a certain point?

They don't need people to turn the hydrants and adjust them. A guy or two in a control room, replaces however many people you'd otherwise need to turn on/off and adjust the flow as temps change. They also have all the sensors and such you'd expect so that guy and the computer knows what the optimal flow/temp is.

Some of the more southern areas have been putting it in across a lot of trails. Wisp was fully automated by SMI. http://www.snowmakers.com/english-euro/customers/customersolutions/wisp/wisp.html

 

[tcharron]

The website says: "The Peak will be the first resort in North America to operate our new HKD Auto-Hydrant, which will be coupled to our patented SV-10 Tower Snowgun." and "The fully automatic Twister trail will allow them to dust the trail nightly with fresh snow."

They make it sound like the computers will figure out when it's best to make snow and will just kick on without human intervention. Could be nice if it works in practice. Have to wonder if they will be smart enough to groom the trail prior to the nightly dusting rather than after.

I guess Pat's will continue to be the first to get 100% open in NH.

No, it won't. We race on twister, and that would suck.

 

[speden]

Some of the more southern areas have been putting it in across a lot of trails. Wisp was fully automated by SMI. http://www.snowmakers.com/english-euro/customers/customersolutions/wisp/wisp.html

That's an interesting website. The snowmaking systems are getting pretty sophisticated. On the software control system they show a screen that monitors the fanguns, and it shows an active fangun consuming 47 amps. That kind of current draw would add up quickly. No wonder snowmaking costs so much.

In their automation section it says, "The benefits of moving from an existing 20 snowgun manual fleet with 120 hydrant positions to a 120 fixed gun full auto system will be considerable." That made me think of Ragged Mountain, but probably they can't afford this type of thing. Also interesting that they have doohickeys you can mount on manual hydrant faucets to open and close them automatically with a programmable torque.