Who Technically Has The Most Powerful Snowmaking System?

[BigK]

Interested in the truth! Which mountain has the most powerful snowmaking system?

 

[skiersleft]

Which mountain has the most powerful snowmaking system?

Hunter.

 

[Nick]

What's the measurement, volume?

 

[BigK]

What's the measurement, volume?

I guess it would have to be which system can produce the most amount of snow in a certain time frame....? Volume?

 

[Riverskier]

Sunday River.

 

[snowmonster]

I don't know much about the techs and specs of snowmaking systems. But, judging from my experience, Sunday River seems to have a pretty powerful snowmaking system. No one can recover from a rain event or thaw quite like the River.

 

[Nick]

Hunter has some interesting facts on their web site

Some Hunter Snowmaking Facts and Trivia:
Hunter uses more than 60 miles of snowmaking pipe
Water capacity equals nearly 43 gallons per minute, per acre
Air capacity equals about 90,000 cfm, including all fan guns with onboard compressors
Overall snowmaking capacity equals 40 tons of snow per minute
Hunter can cover one acre (equivalent to size of a football field) with one foot of snow every hour.
In an average season, Hunter turns about half a billion gallons of water into snow
Hunter has the fastest recovery time of any ski area in the world!

 

[Smellytele]

Probably not the answers BigK from Killington was looking for

 

[mondeo]

If you're asking technically who has the most powerful system, than its measured by cumulative shaft power of the compressors and pumps. Maybe some fuzz on where you measure, but power is power.

 

[WWF-VT]

It's a toss up between God and Mother Nature

 

[Nick]

I would also consider the real measure of snowmaking to be output. But even that's variable depending on weather. I'm sure cooler weather with low humidity produces fluffier snow with a higher volume.

 

[Nick]

Here's an interesting video from Attitash

 

[skiersleft]

It's Hunter.

 

[drjeff]

Much tougher to figure out nowadays than in the past, with so many resorts using a combo of fan and air/water guns. The amount of compressed air you can send up the hill used to be a good indicator for many resorts, not as much these days since fan guns have their own onboard compressors so that's not the indicator it used to be. In a sense, you almost need to look at who can pump the most water up the hill to determine this. But even then, unless you're making snow on a bunch of trails at once, many times a system won't be pumping at maximum capacity. # of guns being run at once?? Again there's the temperature variable that comes into play. Just not an easy thing to determine, which is why so many marketing departments can make a claim that their system can do more of one specific thing any any other system

 

[Rogman]

Most powerful? Depends on the metric. Water up the hill? Cubic feet/Minute of air? Both are relatively easy to measure (but hard to get an honest answer on). Perhaps the best overall metric is who can consistently, year in year out, get terrain open the fastest early season. Isn't that what matters? The answer won't be far from the truth.

 

[x10003q]

Vernon Valley/Great Gorge - Ski the Snowmakers!

 

[Nick]

Nature is the correct answer

 

[SIKSKIER]

The videographer in that Attitash clip is a real joey.First day at a ski area on your new job?

 

[AdironRider]

Sunday River / Killington have by far the largest systems overall IMO.

Hunter definitely can lay down some cover as well.

Noones mentioned Crotched? That place can open every trail in like a 48 hour period or something crazy like that. Regardless of their small size, thats pretty damn impressive.

 

[andrec10]

Hunter still has the most firepower in terms of recovery and how quick they can open terrain!