White Lies (from WSJ)

White Lies

Forget who has the fastest lifts or the coolest runs. What really matters to skiers is more basic: Who can make the best -- and most -- fake snow.

By CONOR DOUGHERTY
November 4, 2006; Page P1

Colorado's Arapahoe Basin Ski Area has no hotel, no spa and it costs nothing to park in the dirt lot that sits at the base of the mountain. Last month, it claimed bragging rights that eluded bigger players like Aspen and Vail: It was the first resort to open for skiing this year. That wasn't a gift from Mother Nature -- most of the snow was manmade. The single open slope stood out like a racing stripe on an otherwise green mountain.

As ski season gets underway, there's a battle brewing in some key regions over who can make the best fake snow. From California to Maine, resorts are installing new tower-mounted guns designed so the fake snow descends in a trajectory more like the real thing. They're laying pipelines and building huge reservoirs to ensure a steady supply, and blanketing top-of-the-mountain runs once covered mainly in real snow. These massive systems now make snow so good that some hardcore skiers say they prefer it -- and resorts are starting to brag about it. Vermont's Killington, for instance, touts its "Signature Snow."

More is on the way. Some resorts, worried about how climate change could shorten their season, see manmade snow as a form of insurance. But faking it is costly -- up to $10,000 a day. There are also environmental concerns. Installing or upgrading systems can change the terrain, some critics say. Others worry it's a drain on water supplies; blanketing a big resort can use millions of gallons of water each year.

A lot is riding on the quantity and quality of a resort's manmade snow. Private-equity firms are snapping up ski resorts and looking to boost profits, while real-estate developers are pushing more ski timeshares, condos and hotel rooms. A growing number of terrain parks, popular among snowboarders, are molded out of manmade snow. And the high-speed lifts that reduce lines have an unintended consequence: With skiers taking more runs, the snows gets worn down much faster and needs a fresh coat.

Manmade snow is no longer just a supplement to what Mother nature provides. It is the main reason why some resorts can open as early as mid-October and stay open with good snow until May. Some skiers say the fake stuff holds up better during a day of heavy skiing.
The first thing Nick Ward checks before he hits the slopes is what might be termed the fake-snow report: He goes onto the resort's Web site to see how much snow the mountain made the night before. And when he gets to the mountain, he follows up with ski patrol to get the details on which runs to hit when. "Did they start with the left or start with the right?" he says. "You're always scouting for intelligence."

One of Mr. Ward's favorite runs is a double black diamond at Sugarbush in Vermont called "F.I.S." ("Freaking Impossible Slope"), where last year the resort upgraded its snowguns with new nozzles that make softer powder. The resort says the new equipment allowed it to keep F.I.S. open 153 days last year, about two weeks longer than the year before.

The uncertainly of weather, always a concern for ski resorts, has become an even bigger topic of conversation amid the warming trend. Some climatologists are predicting a temperature change of around two degrees over the next 30 years. Such changes aren't likely to affect larger resorts at higher altitudes, but could hurt ski areas that are already operating in marginal snow conditions, most notably in the Southwestern and Midwestern states.
Some snowmakers are preparing for that eventuality. Jim Horton, general manager of York Snow, which makes snowmaking equipment, attended a global-warming conference in New Zealand last month to learn from Australian and New Zealand resorts that are struggling with less snow. "We're trying to look for ways to make snow more efficiently in higher temperatures," he says.

Snowfall has been up and down in recent years. U.S. resorts got 216 inches of snow last year, the best in a decade. Despite that, though, resorts averaged 856 hours of snowmaking, up 7% from the same period a year earlier, and the first increase in three years. This year, the National Weather Service is predicting a drier-than-normal winter in the Pacific Northwest and Montana, which would mean less natural snow, but wetter conditions in Central and Southern California.
In Vermont, Stowe recently dug out a 111-million-gallon pond that doubles its snowmaking capacity. In British Columbia, Whistler Blackcomb has added 65 snowmaking guns in the past year; 30 of its 225 guns turn on automatically when the temperature gets around 28 degrees. A new $500,000 air compressor at Jackson Hole will allow the resort to make more snow.

Natural snow and manmade snow share the same two ingredients -- water and cold -- but one difference is easy to appreciate: the price. Between labor, water and maintenance, a big resort can spend $1 million a year making snow, says Mr. Horton, of York Snow. Snowmakers are also dependent on the same forces they are paid to defy: the weather. Because snow is easier to make at lower temperatures, a resort can spend about twice as much making snow at 30 degrees than at 20 degrees.

But it's still cheaper than no snow. Killington last year recorded just 186 inches of natural snow, three-quarters of its average snowfall -- and had to contend with 15 inches of rain between December and March. To keep the mountain open, the resort had to exceed its snowmaking budget by 25%. The result was enough snow to cover 3,000 acres of slopes a foot deep.
Beyond the financial costs, there is the environmental price, and snowmaking uses great quantities of the two most-precious resources: water and energy. At Sunday River in Maine, snowmaking accounts for as much as 80% of the resort's energy expenses. Resorts have to buy millions of gallons of water and pump it across many acres and up thousands of vertical feet. In some cases, the removal of water has been shown to harm fish and increase the concentration of toxic metals in mountain streams.

Arizona Snowbowl in Flagstaff, Ariz., has been trying for years to install snowmaking systems, but has been blocked by lawsuits from environmental groups who have expressed concerns over the a plan to make the snow from reclaimed waste water. Native American tribes also object, saying the expansion would defile lands they hold sacred.

Resorts say all snowmaking operations have to be signed off on by regulators. "If somebody has a snowmaking operation in operation today, the appropriate state and federal authorities have reviewed and approved all of the projects," says Michael Berry, president of National Ski Areas Association. A number of resorts have been taking steps to be more environmentally friendly. Vail, Crested Butte and others have started paying extra for wind power to run their resorts, while Aspen powers its Snowcats on biodiesel.

Nationally, snowmaking has increased 57% over the past decade, according to the National Ski Areas Association. But snowmaking, like the mountains and the weather, has its own set of regional differences. Eastern resorts tend to make snow throughout the year and on a majority of their slopes. Stowe, in Vermont, makes snow on 80% of its mountain, while about 90% of the runs at Maine's Sunday River have manmade snow.

The smaller resorts in states like Maryland and Pennsylvania likely wouldn't exist without artificial snow: Camelback Ski Area in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains has made snow on all of its runs for more than a decade. Western resorts use snowmaking mostly to ensure they open on time and to freshen up the most heavily skied runs. Vail, for instance, makes snow on about 7% of its mountain, Utah's Deer Valley, about 30%.

But even in the West, early openings are a potent marketing tool, especially for small resorts like Arapahoe Basin. "You get energized for the season," says Jonathan Hurthle, a computer-equipment salesman. Mr. Hurthle in September bought a $400 five-mountain pass that includes Arapahoe Basin and Vail. When A-Basin opened a few weeks later, he drove two hours from his home in Boulder, Colo., to ski a single run for one hour.

Manmade snow is also a concern to the private-equity firms that have started snapping up ski resorts in deals that often include hundreds of millions in debt. In the past year, private investors have purchased resorts including Whistler Blackcomb and Mammoth Mountain. Marc Perrin, a managing director with Starwood Capital Group Global LLC, says snowmaking factored into his firm's decision to buy Mammoth, which sold for $365 million.

"Mammoth had huge investment in snowmaking equipment," he says. "We felt comfortable that in years that when there wasn't a lot of snow we could make snow and break even, or be profitable."

There are a handful of U.S. companies that make snow gear, and several dozen worldwide. The latest technology are guns mounted on 30-foot towers that allow resorts to make snow that's more powdery because the extra air time gives the water more chance to freeze.

Recently, as winter temperatures have trended warmer, snowmaking companies have moved toward equipment that can function in those conditions. Charles Santry, president of Snow Economics in Natick, Mass., says his company's first models worked best at temperatures below 23 degrees; today's models work efficiently at 28 degrees.

To make snow, snow guns spray water into the air, first hitting it with a jolt of compressed air that breaks the stream into tiny droplets that can freeze in just a few seconds. To speed this along, many snowmakers add a protein-based compound known as "Snowmax." Some resorts have switched over to "fan guns" that use less compressed air (instead they break up the stream with a higher-pressure water gun and a specially designed nozzle).

Ski resorts experimented with snowmaking in the 1940s, and it was embraced by the broader ski industry after a drought hit many Western resorts in the late 1970s. Despite the many leaps snowmaking technology has taken, artificial snow still tends to be harder under your skis. Some skiers, including racers, prefer manmade snow because it can be more consistent. "It stays glued together," says Eric Bress, a contractor from Denver.

Last year, the Arizona Snowbowl was open only 15 days because of a drought, compared with 139 days the previous year. Without manmade snow to guarantee a reasonably long season, the resort has been reluctant to invest in upgrades, like new lifts.

Snowbowl's general manager J.R. Murray says when he goes looking for the 500 seasonal employees he needs, from lift operators to restaurant employees, he "can't tell the applicant when they'll start, how long they'll work or how much they'll be paid."

"If they have to choose between going to work at the Snowbowl and going to work at Denny's, Denny's is guaranteed," says Mr. Murray.