In light of the state’s snow pack, Utah ski resorts are adopting a “fake it till you make it” mind-set. Although Utah is known for having the greatest snow on earth, local resorts are being forced to follow the example of East Coast hills and produce faux snow with high-cost snow guns placed throughout their mountains.
Yeah, it’s white and cold, but it’s not the real thing. It doesn’t look the same, feel the same and — most importantly — it doesn’t ski the same.
For season-pass holders who have been jonesing for face shots since July and bought their passes in September, skiing on a fraud is not a matter of money. These guys would line up to chew up ice cubes and spit out slush if it meant they could ride five minutes sooner. But the average day-pass buyer is considerably more hesitant to drop one of his 10, carefully budgeted, $70 chunks of ski money on shaved ice that doesn’t even taste like piña colada. Not since Pamela Anderson burst onto the pop-culture radar have people had to ask themselves: A. Is it real? and B. Do I care?
“Passes are way too expensive for a couple icy runs. I’m just going to wait until we get enough real stuff,” said Chelsea Blair, a senior mass communication major at the U.
Most Utah fair-weather skiers agree, opting to wait until after the holidays to break out their new gear and dip into grandpa’s Christmas money for lift passes.
Resorts don’t have the luxury of waiting for Mother Nature to dump on them, however, and many have been making snow ’round the clock to meet rapidly approaching opening days. Even if it means only opening a fraction of their resort, mountain operations crews will blow snow any time temperatures and humidity levels allow. The goal of turning red closed signs to green open signs — therefore turning bottom lines green — is more than enough motivation for mountain executives to spend what it takes to get their mountains operational.
Producing the counterfeit crystals isn’t as easy as turning on the sprinklers, though. A snow gun can cost nearly $5,000 — not including the water lines and power to supply it, or payroll spent to operate it.
“The more snow the better,” said Libby Dowd, a PR director for The Canyons. “We make it any time we can.”
The Canyons’ snow-making crew has been busy since late October and keeps at it even during natural snow fall to maintain features such as their terrain park.
Being located in Cottonwood Canyon means Solitude Mountain Resort gets 500 inches of natural snowfall annually, but even it uses 25 mobile and six fixed pole-mounted snow guns to generate snow in areas prone to melting and wind stripping.
“We are snow-making purely to enhance our natural snow,” said Jay Burke, Solitude’s director of marketing. “We make snow where we know we’ll need it later.”
Burke said Solitude typically uses the snow guns until mid-December.
Last weekend’s storm answered the prayers of resort employees, skiers and boarders alike. The two-day storm dropped between eight and 16 inches across the Wasatch Mountains, providing some much-needed natural dust to the man-made crust.
Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, thousands of season pass-wearing Utahns (myself included) strapped on their rock skis this weekend and hit the mountains with smiles on their faces.
“It’s definitely not the real stuff, but I’m not complaining,” said Josh Matson, skier and student at Utah Valley State College. “Skiing is skiing. The powder days will come — they always do.”
If this weekend’s storm is any indication, it looks as though winter is finally here. Luckily, Utah skiers and boarders haven’t had to wait. For most of us, after all, early winter skiing is more about being excited to be up in the mountain with buddies than it is shredding the nar nar. That’s what February is for. We should enjoy this time to ease into the season, daydreaming of what is to come. As a friend of mine puts it, “There are no friends on a powder day.”