Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 10, 1991 TAG: 9102110304
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BARUDIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"As seasons get milder, you have two choices; put more and more money into snowmaking capacity or give up," said Danny Seme, general manager at Snowshoe in West Virginia. "I spent $300,000 on snowmaking for this season. I'm already budgeting snowmaking improvements for next year. My goal is to have 33 trails open for Thanksgiving."
"The low humidity saved us," said Uel Gardner, ski director at Wintergreen Resort in Nelson County, Va. "While it's been warm lately, humidity has been low, so we didn't get the melting."
As a result of generally low humidity this winter, many of Virginia's ski areas have made enough snow to keep trails open. Wintergreen's five chairlifts are running, with skiing from top to bottom on the mountain, including advanced Cliffhanger and Lower Wild Turkey.
Gardner, who is considered one of the industry's top snowmaking strategists, said he sacrifices numbers of trails for a deep base of 48-60 inches on a selected assortment of slopes. This way every level of skier can enjoy themselves for the longest season possible. Gardner doesn't mind that the limited number of slopes doesn't show well on his ski report.
"At this time, we're doing better every day than we did last year, even without a fast start like we got last December (1989)," he said. "It's a bad weather year, but we're doing much better."
Last Sunday, when Roanoke temperatures were in the high 60s, Wintergreen had highs in the 50s and skied 1,643 people. That's compared to 472 on the same day a year ago. Some 3,588 people came out the day before, versus 1,250 last year. Tuesday saw 515 skiers on the slopes despite the warm weather while last year on that date only 171 people came out.
"Overall, the two years are about the same for skier visits; the good news is that people are coming skiing, even with warm weather," said Gardner.
With snowmaking technology improving each year, the thermometer is becoming less important when compared to the barometer. Take for example Friday, Feb. 1, when a rise in humidity, not temperature, marked the end of seven straight days of round-the-clock snowmaking at Wintergreen. Gardner concedes he made more snow during the day Friday with the thermometer at 36 degrees [using some 800 gallons of water per minute] than he did Friday night when the mercury dropped and the barometer rose to 70 percent.
"We've made snow two or three times this year with temperatures in the 40s and less than 8 percent humidity," said Gardner.
One of the reasons behind this phenomenon is a new tower-mounted snowgun whose perch gives water droplets enough hang time to freeze on the way down. Low humidity helps the evaporative freezing. These new, quieter tower-mounted guns also allow skiers to cruise below without being pelted with frozen particles.
Another innovation is a self-contained snowmaking unit sporting its own air compressor. Cost is $27,000. Wintergreen has five and Massanutten has 20. Each self-sufficient unit can make snow at 34 degrees in low humidity.
In West Virginia, Snowshoe has all 33 trails open because of the resort's emphasis on state-of-the-art snowmaking.
"Last week was probably the best skiing conditions - with snow flurries and cold - that you'll find anywhere," said Seme.
Snowshoe, perched on 4,848-foot Cheat Mountain, in Pocahontas County, W.Va., is enjoying a record season in skier visits, ahead of the previous best 1988-89 season when 300,000 came to ski here.
"We should break that if we have a normal March," said Seme.
West Virginia skiing this year is almost a stamp of the mild season two years ago when it was nip-and-tuck to get all slopes open by January and snow groomers worked round the clock to keep them open. Virginia resorts fared worse then, like this year, with more slopes rutted and bare or even closed.
"We have different climatology than other resorts," said Seme, noting the Arctic air masses that swoop down from the Great Lakes onto West Virginia's higher peaks.
Even so, Snowshoe - which normally receives nearly 200 inches of snowfall a year - has been veiled with less than 50 inches this winter.
"We're in good shape now, but during the holiday period when we had a thin base we wouldn't groom at night until absolutely necessary because the more you loosen up the snow the faster it evaporates," said Seme. "With only about 20 inches of base we had to go cautiously. We had to wait until temperatures dropped and everything was solid before going out and covering bare spots."
During last weekend's high temperatures in Roanoke, Snowshoe recorded mid-40s by day but made snow each night.
If temperature and humidity don't remain low consistently through February, West Virginia skiers will begin to see some trails closed and snowmaking concentrated on bread-and-butter novice and intermediate slopes, with a smattering of advanced terrain left open. In any event, enough base has been blown so far to keep the main trails open through Easter at the end of March.
by CNB