Thursday, November 5, 2009

snowmaking in the 70's

I don't honestly remember which was tried first but very early on Dad purchased a machine that had been used to fog trees with insecticide..........with the purpose of making snow. Seems like it did put out a snowflake or two but with no compressed air to assist, very limited water pressure, the amount of snow made on a really cold night wouldn't have been enough to make a very large snowman........but it was snow and it was made. From there a couple of SMI snowguns..........we still run them today........same design as then..........was purchased and man oh man could they ever make the snow. Mission Accomplished! No more going to the ditches to scoop drifted snow! We could make snow. We could move the gun to different trails. It was a milestone! And of course the art of snowmaking hasn't stopped since the 70's for one minute. A lot of science and technology has been rolled into a single package called a snow gun.

....and thank goodness huh. Some winters we wouldn't have opened very early if it hadn't been for snowmaking.

If ever you want to see snow being made at Seven Oaks you can. We normally get started around Thanksgiving and normally can only make it at night with colder temperatures....but we have a LOT of visitors come to the parking lot for the express purpose of seeing some snow being made.

changing the topic again, sounds like all the earth work was accomplished yesterday at the unload portion of the Riblet chair.......think everyone will like it a lot.......and the work was started on the new trail and building the dam higher.............for more snowmaking water capacity.

see you at Seven Oaks

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

pictures?

Seven Oaks said...

I am going to try to get some pictures this weekend of the new trail to post on the blog.