Snowmaking
| There
are basically two styles too making snow:
Compressed Air and Fan
Guns.
The first method use a conventional air
water gun where two hoses connect to the piping network and
bring together inside the gun a stream of high pressure water
and a stream of high pressure air. The water is atomized by
the air stream and is blasted into the atmosphere using the
energy of both the compressed air and pressurized water to
propel it out of the gun. |
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A
second way to make snow is with "fan" guns. A large
electric motor drives a fan pushing an air stream in a large
metal tube about 3 feet long and 2 feet in diameter. Small water
particles are fed into the air stream by nozzles around the
outlet rim of the tube. The air stream carries them out 50 to
150 feet onto the run, which freeze into snow particles before
they land. Pats Peak has a number of these fan guns, which produce
most of the snow in the base area and our beginner trails. A
disadvantage of these guns is that they are hard to move around
due to their size (they must be towed or hauled
by a snowcat or snowmobile). |
Needless to say that Pats Peak uses both methods to make snow.
The ski area has placed many of its snowmaking guns on fixed towers
to lift them a few feet off the ground. This will give the water
particles more "hang time" in the air to freeze, thereby
producing more snow by allowing more water to be added to the air-water
mixture.
WEATHER
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