First Snowmakers of the Semester

Normally I am not awake at 2:30AM, but tonight, I am in Snowmaking Lab, hence why I am writing this blog at this hour of the morning.

It was a learning experience for all- both myself, my fellow snowmakers, and the teacher. Since it is the first snowmaking lab of the semester, and Jason Gusaas, the new Ski Area Operations professor, is in charge of the lab, we spent the first hour and a half figuring the system out. Among our discoveries were:
1. The SnowMax system depletes itself awful fast at 100% capacity. 20% capacity is much more economical.
2. The hoses require an adapter to fit the gun/hydrant. We were not able to get the tower gun hooked up, so we are only running the fan gun.
3. Weather reports lie. It was supposed to get down to 21 degrees and snow 1 inch. But the lowest temperature we recorded was 29 degrees and it never snowed. We also got to use our amazing "wet bulb computation" skills. It's a very complicated process. You take the "dry bulb" temperature which is the temperature that a thermometer reads, and you line it up with the % relative humidity on a chart and then you do a little guessing since the temperatures are in evens and the % humidity goes by 10's.

We also played around with the little gun for awhile, that we intend to use behind the dorms to add snow to the little rail yard, but we didn't set it up back there because we determined that it has to be colder than it currently is in order for it really produce any snow.

However, the wind did cooperate with us, as it stayed out of the north or north-northeast all night, which blows the snow up Dutch Henri (the gun was located at the bottom of the hill). Also, no disasters happened, which is good. The most we ever had to do was turn the gun a little bit.

I also discovered that TV shows about a clown and a spaghetti ball are INCREDIBLY amusing at 5:30 in the morning.

While I would not enjoy making snow every night, it's not such a bad job for a night or two.