DENVER — The Colorado mountains got a much-needed dose of snowfall Wednesday, but it was only the third storm of the season so far and all Mother Nature could muster the past couple of weeks was lots of sunshine and warmer than normal temperatures.
“What brings us life brings us misery," said Mike Looney, slope maintenance manager at Copper Mountain Resort. "That 20-inch storm we got a couple weeks ago settled into 8 inches. So, a great 20-inch storm was not a whole lot.”
He said they were not expecting anywhere near 20 inches of snow with Wednesday's storm. There was 3 inches showing on their snow camera at 4 p.m. But he’s still planning to open the mountain up for business Monday because they'll make up for the lack of snowy weather with some synthetic fire power.
"In years like this, there probably wouldn't be any ski lifts running in Colorado yet if it weren't for snowmaking," Looney said. "But as long as we get some cold nights with low humidity, we can make a lot of snow."
Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, Winter Park and Eldora already has lifts running. Loveland, Breckenridge and Vail plan to open Friday.
He said even that's been a challenge lately with as much direct sunlight that's been hitting the mountain, but he said they will be able to make snow 24 hours a day from Wednesday through the weekend to make their opening day target of Nov. 13.
Copper Mountain already opened a training racecourse Oct. 30.
"We have a lot of A-Class athletes on our mountain right now that are training and getting ready for their season's," Looney said. "That's just part of what we do and it's important to us."
He said all together Copper Mountain Resort has about 40 employees on their snowmaking operations that put in about 30,000 labor hours between Oct. 1 and mid-December running about 1,000 snow guns,
He said with less compressed air in the cannons, the mountain's crews have figured out how to make fluffier snow, instead of the wet dense stuff that’s more common from machines.
“We try to make it as dry as possible, and we try to stay off of it until it cures a little bit," he said. "And that’s a big process of patience.”
He said they let the piles of man-made snow that comes out of their guns leech moisture for days before spreading it onto the slopes. The artificial snow layer will help Copper open early, and it will also be the foundation that the rest of the season is built on.
"It makes the ground colder and it's insulating so the radiant heats not coming up," he said. “If you make a pile of snow and it melts a little bit it’s still changing the ground and getting it ready for what you hope is going to be a good season.”
Looney said he's expecting an average snow year in the Colorado mountains, which for Copper Mountain is 305 inches of snow. Last year Copper had its longest ski season in 25 years with 175 days of lift operations, which was thanks in part to a solid foundation that of man-made snow in the fall.
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