When it comes to natural snow, the climate these days isn’t always forthcoming. It was especially stingy last winter in the Midwest, where states like Minnesota and Wisconsin saw almost no snow. This kind of discouraging winter is increasingly pushing cross-country ski areas to follow the lead of their alpine brethren and rely on snowmaking in order to make up for what nature seems unwilling to produce consistently.

“Midwestern and Eastern areas in particular have suffered for years,” says Reese Brown, executive director of the Cross Country Ski Areas Association, in reference to the dearth of natural snowfall. “And if you aren’t open, there is no revenue stream.” Or, put simply, snow is money. Even a “small square” of snow—if only for teaching beginner lessons or to attract notice of cars passing by—can make a difference. “Anything you’ve got is something,” says Brown.

Snowmaking possibilities, however, cover a wide and complex matrix, with area size, cost, equipment, manpower, water resources, and other factors to be considered. What makes sense at one area might be foolish elsewhere.

TOP CONSIDERATION: COST

The question of cost: is it worth it? The first consideration, undoubtedly, is cost. While the cost of snowmaking systems at alpine areas typically run well into the millions, Brown says it is possible to install a smaller cross-country system for an initial cost of less than $100,000.

That said, initial installation is just a piece of the price-tag pie. Operating costs, especially energy costs, can add up. In addition, grooming equipment might require an upgrade. The grooming method used at many smaller areas—a snowmobile dragging various implements—will likely be insufficient to break down and redistribute whales of man-made snow. 

In the grooming-machine market, a smaller used PistenBully or Prinoth snowcat can run $100,000 or more (or less for older cats). Snow Rabbit grooming machines, designed for operating in tight spaces and grooming cross-country ski and snowmobile trails, run in the low six-figures new. Another option is to lease a snowcat, which can run more than $10,000 a month.

Where will the money come from? Unlike alpine resorts, most of which are privately owned, for-profit enterprises, ownership at cross-country areas is much more variegated. Thus the source of capital for new investments can be more ambiguous. There are, to be sure, many privately owned cross-country operations, but there are also many that are municipally owned, many that are operated by local clubs, some that are owned by schools or colleges, and so on. Any area considering the investment in snowmaking would be wise to scan a broad field of possibilities in seeking potential sources of capital.

CASE STUDIES

Spirit Mountain, Mn

Community support was crucial. Spirit Mountain, in Duluth, Minn., is an alpine-Nordic area owned by the city. Spirit began investing in a cross-country snowmaking system in 2018, starting with a 1.5-kilometer loop, as part of a longer-term recreation plan that included the Duluth Cross Country Ski Club (which raised significant private dollars), the City of Duluth, and Spirit.

One of the driving forces behind the move to cross-country snowmaking—essentially expanding the snowmaking system already in place on the alpine terrain—was to provide local school children with a place for reliable race training. That is the kind of incentive you might expect at a publicly owned facility with a public-interest mandate.

Still, the proposition was expensive, and any investment involving taxpayer money is always subject to public scrutiny. However, for at least some of the financing, Spirit Mountain could look to the active Duluth Cross Country Ski Club. In a fundraising campaign, the club was able to raise $900,000, some of which went to subsidizing the cost of the snowmaking system. (Lighted trails for night skiing were also part of the plan.)

Herewith a lesson for all cross-country areas: local ski club members or season passholders can potentially be a significant source of energy, organization, and fundraising clout for any area looking to make improvements, snowmaking or otherwise. 

Sleepy Hollow, Vt

An economical and incremental approach. Eli Enman, proprietor of Sleepy Hollow cross-country center in Huntington, Vt., decided to enter the world of snowmaking in 2012 with an economical and incremental approach. He had first considered installing snowmaking in 2000, but after consulting with snowmaking experts, he was turned away by what he calls “sticker shock.”

By 2012, though, Enman revisited the snowmaking idea. “We needed more consistency,” he says, in being able to cover a full winter without repeated closures due to lack of snow. So, that fall, Sleepy Hollow installed a “tiny system” with about 300 feet of 6-inch water and air pipe and a few hundred feet of 2-inch pipe that fed two HKD air-water guns from two 7.5-horsepower water pumps, and one 15-horsepower air compressor. Including a few hundred feet of snowmaking hose, the initial cost was roughly $70,000. Sleepy Hollow was already using heavy machinery for grooming, so there was no additional expense involved there.

Enman has consistently added to the system over the years, supplementing the HKD guns with 16 “mini guns” designed by a Sleepy Hollow passholder. These guns have camlock fittings so they can be moved around and attached to fixed mounts along the air and water line. “We can run 16 mini guns from buried HDPE pipe with the ‘hydrant’ sets teed-in every 40 feet,” says Enman. Now, three 7.5-horsepower water pumps deliver 90 gpm from two water storage ponds. The Sleepy Hollow system can cover 1,000 to 1,200 feet at a time in 24 hours. Total coverage is about 3 kilometers. 

Including the initial installation in 2012, Enman says the total investment has been roughly $200,000 to $250,000. He estimates that his annual electrical costs run about $5,000.

Measuring the ROI. The overall impact of the investment? A big pulse of energy into Sleepy Hollow’s revenue stream, says Enman. Skier visits went “way up,” supplemented by the area’s ability to host more events and provide a race-training facility for hundreds of nearby high-school kids paying a reduced season-pass rate. “It has definitely been worth it financially,” says Enman.

Left to right: Sleepy Hollow, Vt., has continually added to its snowmaking system over the years. Its custom “mini guns” (pictured) and HKD mobile sticks cover about 3 kilometers of trails; Snowcats are needed to distribute machine-made snow on the XC trails at Spirit Mountain, Minn.  

Rikert Outdoor Center, Vt

Racing into the future. Racing was also a consideration at the Rikert cross-country center in nearby Ripton, Vt. Rikert is owned by Middlebury College, with an endowment of roughly $1.5 billion, so when Mike Hussey—who had led Rikert for 14 years before moving on to run the burgeoning Oak Hill Outdoor Center in Hanover, N.H., this spring—decided to go the snowmaking route in 2013, there was capital to draw on.

Nevertheless, when Hussey mapped out a 5-kilometer track to be covered with machine-made snow, and to be widened and graded in order to meet homologation standards for FIS racing, he had to justify the initial outlay of $850,000 to the college higher-ups. Hosting races and providing a race-training venue for the college’s highly ranked ski team was a big part of the reasoning. More important, perhaps, was simply being able to stay open throughout the winter for skiing and, hence, being able to generate a more continuous revenue stream.

Positive impact. The impact, says Hussey, was immediate. The number of days open for skiing jumped from 70 to 140, resulting in a substantial increase in skier days and revenues. Hussey says that the initial investment “is about paid back at this point.”

If there is one thing Hussey might have done differently, it would have been to reduce the size the snowmaking area, commensurately reducing the expense. The 5k distance was based on typical race lengths, but Hussey says that he noticed that at other race venues this past winter there were no loops longer than 3.3k.

Water rationing. For Rikert, the biggest hurdle to clear was water supply. Rikert has a limited amount of available water and, prior to the snowmaking installation, had to go through Vermont’s rigid Act 250 process that regulates environmental issues for developers. As a result, Rikert’s snowmaking process must be limited to one segment of a half kilometer or so at a time (or around 24 hours of snowmaking), then it must allow the water reservoir to recharge before firing up again.

Another lesson learned here: Even the most well-financed operator can only do so much if water is in limited supply.

EQUIPMENT THAT WORKS

 A big question for cross-country snowmaking, of course, is what kind of hardware makes the most sense? Brown says that implementing fan guns, which have onboard air compressors, can be a good place to start. A fan gun is more expensive than a typical air-water gun but requires a bit less infrastructure. Instead of needing to install a compressed-air system, including pipe infrastructure, they require installation of a few high-voltage electrical pedestals. 

Water only. Spirit Mountain, for example, doesn’t have any on-hill air and uses mostly mobile SMI Kid fan guns in the heart of its cross-country trails where a narrower throw is needed. As Spirit’s head of maintenance Tom Straka says, “We couldn’t use the big guns because that would wreck the trees.” However, the bigger SMI Standard Polecats are used in wider areas, and Super Polecats are used in the stadium area. It’s all about the application.

On narrow cross-country trails through the woods, guns with narrow directional throws generally make the most sense. Hussey opted for a mix of HKD guns but particularly likes the Phazer model, which can focus all its throw directly onto a trail. Most are sled-mounted mobile guns along with a few fixed-position guns on hinged swing arms for better accuracy. 

While Straka says that at Spirit Mountain the target snow depths for the alpine area and the Nordic area are the same, cross-country operators can generally get away with less snow depth than at alpine areas due to much less skier traffic and the absence of sharp ski edges repeatedly peeling snow away downhill. 

 Outdoor Center, Vt., utilzes a mix of sled-mounted and fixed-position (pictured) stick guns from HKD to cover its trails.

A MACHINE-MADE FUTURE?

Will making snow at cross-country areas become, as at almost all alpine areas, standard operating procedure? Long-term climate trends might dictate that, but at this point, any cross-country operator needs to make a careful balance-sheet analysis. Given the tight margins associated with cross-country operations, closure (or partial closure) during low-snow periods might make more sense financially. 

At a publicly owned area like Spirit Mountain, the balance sheet might be just one consideration; providing a reliable community asset might also need to be factored into the decision. As Brown says, when it comes to a return on investment, financial or otherwise, “everyone is different.”

But everyone is the same in one regard: Natural snow in recent years has been in short supply, especially in the Midwest and the East. Twenty years ago, snowmaking at a cross-country area was unusual, but that’s changing. Fast.