My weekend at Whiteface March 4, 5th 2016

Ethan is correct. Ground guns are fine, they just have to be moved a lot. I don't know how they do it now but, back in the day, at least at killington, they would pick them up and reposition them without shutting them off. Those guys that did that every day were monsters. I spent most of my time in the control room but the few times I went out with the guys on the hill, it really kicked my ass. Picking up and moving a running snow gun is probably the hardest thing, physically, I've ever done. The upside is that if they planned it out correctly, started out in the right spot and stayed on top of the plan, they ended up with far fewer whales and lift shots then what I see with tower guns nowadays. With cold temps, the trails were ready to go right away without grooming.

It's more efficient to have guns that don't need to be picked up and moved while running.  Dangerous work, especially when on a steeper trail.  It's also a lot quicker to resurface after a thaw/r*in when you don't have to move guns into position, just light em up as soon as it's cold enough.

I've seen plenty of trails opened without grooming where they used tower guns.  Hunter and Mound Snow do this pretty frequently.

Fan guns cost like 30,000 a piece, but spread the snow out very well, so no whales to groom out.

Glad you had such a great trip, Ethan.  IMO the snowmakers and groomers at WF did a tremendous job this season.

They definitely did Jeff

Yo were skiing on 1995 salomen skis this weekend?

tjf1967 wrote

Yo were skiing on 1995 salomen skis this weekend?

Me?  No, I was down at Gore this weekend.  K2s, tele.  They're due to be retired, but they ain't that old!

Ethan Snow wrote

For electricity, a 4310 HP motor consumes 3.2 million watts. One HP consumes 740 Watts of electricity. Divide 3.2 million by volts which is 480 and you get 6,650 amps.  Your main disconnect on your house is 200 amps. If you've never broken that main, then you've never used 200 amps. On a busy day, you,might use 100 amps, unless you are making snow like I am. Anyway, Thats one hefty electric bill, and it's all because you have to overcome so much elevation. Of we were making snow on a level surface it would be easy.

Think I heard Gore has a 7000 hp locomotive engine driving their snowmaking system, so this makes sense if you calculated 4310 hp. I could be wrong but this is what I heard from someone earlier this season.

Adk Jeff wrote

Glad you had such a great trip, Ethan.  IMO the snowmakers and groomers at WF did a tremendous job this season.

Couldn't agree more with you Jeff..those snowmakers surely turned lemons into lemonade in terms of salvaging this season at WF. Hats off to that team!