Snow sports: Advanced snowmaking a boon at Wachusett

Skiing partner and guide to all things Stowe, John Stobierski of Deerfield, and I peer over a precipitous headwall near the top of the Mount Mansfield ski trail complex.

It's been snowing for 12 hours, and on this cold early December day fluffy light powder awaits below the rock-hard, icy top section of Stowe's double black diamond National trail, part of the classic northern Vermont resort's fabled "front four," which also includes Starr, Goat and Liftline. It's one of the steepest and gnarliest pitches in the East.

"Let's see what we have here," Stobierski, a Stowe regular, says, before abruptly dropping in and executing two sweeping, chattering turns down the face of Upper National and plunging into the soft snow and rounded bumps below. He accelerates down the hill, trailing a cloud of white powder smoke, with me in his tracks.

Stopping at the intersection of Liftline to catch our breath, we smile, exhilarated by the phenomenal early season skiing. "See, that's why I don't think I need to ski anywhere else," Stobierski says, even though his Epic Pass enables him to.

Snowmaking success

As it happens, we've been enjoying great early season skiing in New England for some years now, and natural weather has a lot to do with it, but so does the science of snowmaking.

The particular meteorological pattern that dropped over a foot of new snow on Stowe last week was due to lake effect from nearby, still unfrozen Lake Champlain.

But early season snow is not always abundant (though it certainly also has been plentiful here in Central Massachusetts early this month), and that's where energy efficient snowmaking guns from Natick-based HKD Snowmaking and GPS snow-mapping technology from Collingwood, Ontario's Snowright come in.

Both companies sent representatives to a Northeast Weather Summit at Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton Dec. 8, organized by Wachusett in conjunction with the national ski and snowboard writers association, of which I'm a member, and area meteorologists.

Among the summit topics: how the polar vortex affects snowfall, climate change, better relations between ski areas and TV weather people, long- and short-range weather forecasting, and the advanced techniques ski areas are employing to make and maintain snow.

Wachusett Mountain president Jeff Crowley, an expert on snowmaking and grooming, was on hand for a panel with Ian Jarrett, vice president at HKD, and Steve Young, founder and president of Snowright.

Crowley's father, Ralph Crowley Sr., founded the modern Wachusett in 1969, when the state privatized ski area operations on the state-owned reservation. In those days, Jeff Crowley recounted, people were skeptical that an area this far south could succeed when the northern ski areas were the ones that grabbed most of the natural snow.

"But with the advent of really good snowmaking, thanks to our friends at HKD, this has really turned out to be a home run," Crowley said, referring to Wachusett's success.

The relatively small, but well-located and technologically savvy operation does 375,000 annual skier and snowboarder visits, on average.

That's a huge number for a ski area Wachusett's size, putting it among top 30 or 40 ski areas of any size in the country for skier visits.

By comparison, Crystal Mountain, a prodigious, 2,500-plus-acre resort, with 3,100 vertical feet, an hour and a half from Seattle, does 345,000 (but is planning for 400,000 this season), according to my brother, Adam, vice president of business development at the Alterra-owned and Ikon pass-friendly Pacific Northwest ski area.

With modern technology, Wachusett is able to not only put out huge volumes of snow, but also retain most of it when it rains, like earlier this week, Crowley said noting that Wachusett usually has enough snow stockpiled that it can readily spread it around after a rain or thaw event.

"This stuff is so durable. It lasts a long time," he said.

Jarrett, of HKD, one of the world's top manufacturers of energy efficient snowmaking guns, said HKD has lately started to focus on critical issues other than energy efficiency.

"Operating the guns at higher temperatures has become more and more important as we see the challenges of the skin industry, whether they're climate related or timing related," Jarrett said. "Everyone's trying to get open a bit earlier, so we've got to be able to run in warmer temperatures."

Stowe a must

Back to Stowe. Skiers and snowboarders just have to put the classic resort on their short term to-ski list.

In its third season under Vail Resorts ownership, Stowe is doing better than ever, with a thriving restaurant and nightlife scene that is unquestionably the best in the East.

In my opinion, Stowe also boasts the toughest and most varied sustained vertical in the East, challenged only perhaps by Killington, Sugarbush, Sugarloaf and Sunday River.

But because it's so big and offers up so many steeps, and because Vail is perhaps more conservative with snowmaking and grooming at Stowe, it doesn't usually open as early, with as many runs available, as some other resorts.

Indeed, when I visited last week, only 30 or so trails were open, but what was open was in good to great shape.

Stowe has a lot of great intermediate terrain too, particularly in the Spruce Peak area, which insurance giant AIG built up into a luxury destination in the 2000s.

Interestingly, AIG still owns most of Stowe' base operations, while Vail owns and runs the lifts. But Vail is said to be interested in buying the base properties as well.

--Contact Shaun Sutner at s_sutner@yahoo.com.

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