Blizzard of January 2012!

What Happens when Mother Nature gets stingy with snow? We make our own!! 

Pole mounted snow maker

Over the weekend, we created our own "Blizzard of January 2012" at Mount Peter in Warwick, New York. Starting Friday afternoon, January 13, our Mountain Operations crew went on a snow making frenzy. Over 60 hours of non-stop snow making opened new terrain and covered the mountain with a fresh blanket of the white stuff. That may sound like an easy task, but as you will see here, there is a lot more involved than meets the eye.

Mount Peter's snowmaking system is a vital part of the ski area's overall operation. Snowmaking allows the area to open earlier (Dec 24, 2011), and remain open even during very warm periods. The system allows our snowmaking crew (the BEST In the region) to lay down snow where the area needs it most, and to control the quality of the snow.

Snowmaking, basically, is the process of breaking water into very small droplets, and then freezing those droplets, forming snow. The resulting product is a small pellet around 50-100 microns in size. The snow that is made is similar to snow that has been drifted, or blown around. Manmade is generally more dense than natural snow, and that means it is usually more durable, and will hold up longer on a ski run than natural snow.

A snow making machine in action!

So how does Mount Peter create the perfect snow product? Mount Peter has over 20 snow making machines. They work by using a fan to move a high volume of air. Nozzles located on the snow maker spray small droplets of water into a frigid air column. The droplets are frozen as they move through the air column before falling back to the ground. The resulting snow is then moved and groomed with our grooming machine so it's ready for your enjoyment


So, yes, we have SNOW!!! No gimmicks, just lots of snow!!!