When we break it all down, a groom-ing machine serves two primary purposes: pushing piles of snow and leaving a smooth snow surface. And just about every aspect of a machine’s function has been modified with modern technology designed to make them more efficient, more comfortable, and more user-friendly. 

Modern snowcats now come standard with more electronic, digital features than mechanical. Touchscreens, a bevy of sensors, cameras, and much more. “Today’s groomers have to be high-tech command centers that are as intuitive as possible,” says Prinoth vice president and general manager Scott Jones.

Do resorts and operators appreciate the technological advancements? Yes, certainly, for upgrades such as Tier 4 and now Stage V engines, which are cleaner, quieter, more efficient, and more powerful than anything before. Twelve-way blades, enhanced hydraulics, flexible tillers, better lighting, and smart winches are other mostly universally-liked functions.

Though all this tech is the way of the world, operators have mixed feelings about it, as we learned in speaking with a handful of mountain ops and grooming department leaders—people with varying years of experience, from ski areas large and small, and with mixed fleets and single-manufacturer fleets. Their sentiment: Technology’s great when it works, but it’s not as great when something that doesn’t directly contribute to the cat’s two primary purposes causes downtime. It can also be a challenge for mechanics when the repair requires a computer rather than a wrench. 

“I started working on snowcats in 1996, and with 100 percent conviction, I will say that snowcats are more reliable today than they were back then,” asserts PistenBully/SNOWsat vice president Jeb Ellermeyer. “Snowcats are better designed, they’re more efficient, they’re easier to work on if you’re trained properly. Snowcats used to break more than they break today.”

Aside from greater efficiency (which everyone appreciates), some ski area snowcat operators will agree with this assessment, some won’t. A host of different variables impact an individual’s view on the matter. That said, both Prinoth and PistenBully are continually refining their tech with an eye toward reliability and functionality. 

 Left to Right: PistenBully introduced the PB 100 E to North America this year. It has an all-electric drivetrain and fully charges in about three hours; The Leitwolf, Prinoth’s flagship snowcat worldwide and also its largest, is gaining traction in the North American market.

No Going Back

According to both Jones and Ellermeyer, it would be difficult to develop a more utilitarian grooming machine with fewer bells and whistles at an affordable price. “It’s actually more expensive to go backwards in technology,” says Jones. “That [older] stuff is less readily available and more expensive to gain access to than the true fly-by-wire electronics we use today.”

“The goal of all equipment production is to be as efficient as possible, and one of the methods is to limit low volume variants as well as components that are not readily available,” adds Ellermeyer. “Another factor is that current emission standards impact the complete tractor drivetrain design.” 

What’s New? 

PRINOTH

Prinoth is currently demoing a new version of its closed-profile steel track that will go into series production for purchase in 2026. “It’s got a new profile on the top of the crossbar cross link, which will provide increased traction and increased side-hill grip,” says product and sales manager Walter Piekarz.

The Power Tiller, born in Europe, is getting some updates for the North American market. “We’ve combined some aspects of the PosiFlex Tiller into it, like adding a snow chamber,” says Piekarz. The biggest update is what Prinoth calls the Ultimate Corduroy cutter bar, which has almost double the number of cutting teeth compared to the original Power Tiller. “It just processes the heck out of the snow,” says Piekarz, adding that the resorts demoing it this season have “really fallen in love with it.” It will be the standard cutter bar on the Power Tiller starting next season, available for the Bison and Leitwolf. 

In addition, a new quick tiller connection system is available for order this year for both Bison and Leitwolf machines that utilize the Power Tiller. How it works: The tiller frame is connected to the rear lifting frame with hydraulically activated locking pins rather than bolts. A mounted camera and a painted stripe visible from the camera assist the operator with alignment. 

There is a hydraulic hose quick connection that the operator still needs to get out of the cabin to attach. “We still feel it’s best to connect the hydraulics by hand and do a visual check,” says Piekarz. “The hydraulic quick connect, though, is much faster and easier than the ‘normal’ hose fittings, et cetera.”

 Left to right: Prinoth will introduce the Ultimate Corduroy cutter bar, with nearly twice as many teeth as the standard Power Tiller, in 2026; The new Kässbohrer Fast Exchange allows the operator to connect and disconnect the PistenBully Alpenflex tiller without getting out of the cab.

PISTENBULLY

The top story: PistenBully is debuting the all-electric PB 100 E in North America after several years in development. Idaho’s Blaine County Recreation District, which manages a vast network of cross-country ski trails, is set to receive delivery of the first machine in early March.

“We introduced the 100 E in 2019 at the Interalpin show in Austria,” says Ellermeyer. Back then, it took six hours to fully charge the battery for roughly three hours of run time. Now, the charge time is just three hours, thanks to improved battery technology. The run time is still the same since installing a bigger (and heavier) battery isn’t an option for machines that operate on snow.

In addition, the diesel-powered PB 100 in the ParkPro package—which was offered in limited production for the first time this year—will go into full production next year for North America. The package includes park-building features such as increased geometry for both the blade and tiller.

Also new to North America is the Kässbohrer Fast Exchange (KFX) for the Alpenflex tiller on the PB 600 platform, a product the company has been working on for years, according to Ellermeyer. “The KFX system allows the operator to connect and disconnect the tiller without getting out of the cab,” he says. KFX comes as a kit that can be retrofitted to existing tillers and snowcats, replacing all the old couplers and hoses while utilizing the same lift frame on the snowcat.  

After the Sale

Operators and manufacturers agree that the most important aspect of owning snowcats is how the manufacturers handle parts and service after the sale.

Snowshoe Mountain (W.Va.) VP of mountain operations Ken Gaitor, who manages a mixed-fleet with 14 machines of varying generations—from new Stage V Prinoth Bisons and Tier 4 PistenBully 600 Polars to BR350s—keeps his options open based on the current level of service, which includes everything from parts availability and training to how responsive reps are and the level of support they provide.

“My whole theory on having the mixed fleet is I just don’t want to be in anybody’s pocket—and the manufacturers know that,” says Gaitor. “And so, when the service starts to wane a little bit, and it does, the pendulum swings for us from one to the other.”

Jones says Prinoth has been investing tremendous resources to expand and improve its parts and service system, a conscious effort that the company knew it needed to better support its customers. This includes building new regional distribution centers (RDCs) and expanding existing ones, making “very large strategic buys on parts” to improve inventory and fill rates, and expanding the size of service centers as well as its team of technicians. 

“We’ve increased from 14 techs in 2019 to 27 techs in 2024, with three additional techs in the budget for 2025,” says Jones. Prinoth has also added fully loaded service trucks with tools, parts, and even cranes that can go on-site to make repairs and perform maintenance at ski areas. 

PistenBully, which Ellermeyer says has long strategically invested in parts and service, has regional offices across North America as well as a network of dealers that also stock parts and employ service technicians. “We have the most service locations in North America,” he says. 

The dealer network helps with this, says Ellermeyer, who points out the PistenBully dealer in Western Canada, for example, has five different locations.

Maintenance and repair help is especially important for smaller ski areas that don’t have dedicated mechanics. It’s often the snowcat operators that maintain the machines and fix them when they break, which is the case at Trollhaugen, Wis., where Adam Mahler is the mountain manager (and snowcat operator, park builder, vehicle mechanic, fry cook, etc.). 

For small ski areas like Trollhaugen, which has a PistenBully fleet, it’s important to have access to service technicians when help is needed. “Luckily, the service reps in our area are really good at answering the phone and then walking you through whatever the issue is over the phone, too,” says Mahler.

Ellermeyer posits that an advantage to the latest generation of snowcats is the ability to diagnose issues remotely. “We can look at the machine and see through web-based telemetry what’s wrong,” he says. “And that makes us more efficient in responding, but it also makes repair times much quicker for most customers.” 

 Left to right: Ready to welcome resort technicians for an annual PistenBully service school; Prinoth has made big investments in parts inventory to better serve its customers.

Training

Ski area personnel would like to see the manufacturers offer more hands-on training for both technicians and operators.

“We send our mechanics to service school with Prinoth normally once a year, so they get to interact with everything,” says Stratton Mountain (Vt.) grooming manager Judy Kaczor. “I’ve sent a couple operators as well just so they can get a general idea of what’s involved, and so they can help out if needed.”

There’s opportunity, says Jones, to continue expanding Prinoth Academy—the umbrella for all the company’s in-person and online training programs—to offer more in-person training because he knows that’s how most people learn the best. 

The preseason technician trainings Kaczor sends her staff to are multi-day gatherings at the Prinoth RDCs. Jones says they’ve had record turnout in recent years. 

As demand for training grows and snowcats get more technologically advanced, events like the SAVMI (Ski Area Vehicle Maintenance Institute) conference are even more important, although it’s becoming more difficult to find qualified instructors who will teach workshops for free, according to Tom Kendrick, Deer Valley (Utah) vehicle fleet manager and SAVMI board member.

It’s different from when everything was mechanical, he says. There were more people who could teach, “but now it’s software and modules,” which requires a new approach to training schools. “And that will cost money, and I think that ski areas have to pay for that to get the quality training we need,” says Kendrick.

For operator training, the Prinoth demo team consists of five skilled operators that travel to resorts and provide multi-day, in-cat training in new demo machines. “We’re not just dropping off a machine at a ski area and saying to them, ‘See you in a couple weeks. Let me know what you think,’” says Jones. “We’re sending a guy that’s spending two, three, four days in the cat with operators truly doing training.”

This experience, which is a free service, has been so effective that some ski areas have asked for more—and offered to pay for it. “We want to keep building this demo team,” says Jones, and if some ski areas want a demo operator to spend more time and would pay for a portion of it, that would help offset costs for the manufacturer, “and is helpful for the resorts because they’re getting true, formal training,” he says. 

PistenBully Pro Academy encompasses the company’s online training modules as well as in-person training. 

“We’re continuing to invest in the online because we can reach more people more efficiently,” and more courses are being added, says Ellermeyer, because online training is the most accessible to a lot of people. “But we do also offer in-person Pro Academy training for operators at their resort, and every region does a regional service school once a year.”

Other events, such as the SAVMI conference, are big as well, he notes.

“It’s no secret that training is a huge priority for us,” says Ellermeyer. “We have people on staff that are dedicated to Pro Academy, and each year we see an increase in hands-on and online Pro Academy signups.”

GOING GREEN

PRINOTH

After introducing the first electric snowcat to North America last year with the Husky E-Motion, Prinoth has embarked on an ambitious next step: developing an electric Leitwolf. 

The Leitwolf is Prinoth’s flagship machine worldwide, and its biggest with a track width of nearly 15 feet. The company has partnered with Compagnie des Alpes, the largest ski area operator in France, to develop what would be the first fully functional electric frontline groomer. “The goal is that it will be able to groom an eight-hour shift in almost one charge,” says Jones. It would operate for four hours, charge for an hour, and operate for another four hours. 

“They’re fast tracking—it’s already designed,” says Jones. “They’re just working on the technology now, but they’re expecting to have a fully functional prototype on the glacier running this year.” 

The company continues its pursuit of a hydrogen-powered Leitwolf, the H2-Motion, though production of this vehicle is hindered by the availability and safe storage of hydrogen.

 Left to right: Charging the electric Prinoth Husky E-Motion; The PistenBully 600 E+ is a diesel-electric hybrid.

PISTENBULLY

With the arrival of the PB 100 E to North America, PistenBully is officially in the electric snowcat game. The 100 E has a fully electric drivetrain, which allows for regenerative heat technology. “When you’re going downhill, the motors create resistance, and the energy they’re capturing can go back into the battery,” says Ellermeyer. “That technology, along with the more efficient transmission of power, gives us the architecture to add features like regenerative braking.”

PistenBully provides a high-voltage charger that’s designed to be compatible with the same three-phase outlets that fan guns at ski areas use. Ellermeyer concedes that infrastructure may need to be added if fan guns aren’t present, such as at Nordic areas—one of the two primary targets for the 100 E, along with indoor ski areas. 

The diesel-electric hybrid 600 E+, an innovation introduced in 2012, remains the only snowcat of its kind, burning less fuel and emitting fewer particulates than standard diesel engines thanks to its electric drivetrain. That technology contributed to the development of the 100 E. “We took what we learned on the 600 E+ and applied it to the all-electric 100 E,” says Ellermeyer.

Snow Management

Efficiency applies to managing snow, too. Both manufacturers reported a strong year of sales for their snow-depth management systems, which suggests ski areas are recognizing the benefits and ROI of this technology despite the initial price tag.

“We have sold more snow measurement systems this year than any year in the past,” says Prinoth’s Piekarz of the company’s product offered in partnership with Leica Geosystems. 

PistenBully introduced its LiDAR system as part of the SNOWSat platform last year, and it sold well, according to Ellermeyer. “We’re continuing to enhance that product, and that’s been really exciting. Tons of good feedback from operators,” he says.