California is not the first place to use this strategy. During fires in Australia two years ago, snow machines were used to protect historic infrastructure. While this specific use is new, since its inception after World War II snow-making has been entangled in corporate attempts to adapt to, and prosper in, precarious climates. In other words, snow-making is not becoming a climate adaptation strategy as climate change accelerates, it has always been one.
In the first five years after World War II, the ski industry was expanding rapidly in the United States. With newfound prosperity, a growing middle class and the widespread coverage of the heroics of the 10th Mountain Division during the war, skiing was growing in popularity and in cultural cache. But it was a precarious industry dependent on the whims of the weather and comparatively poor weather forecasts.
Particularly in the Midwest and on the East Coast, snow reports from the late 1940s were guessing games. Sportswriters guessed where snow might fall based on ski area reports from farther west, but the industry lacked computer technology and theoretical formulas to make sufficiently accurate predictions.
With such unstable conditions, building chairlifts and base lodges and investing in real estate was a gamble. A couple of dry seasons or a few devastating January thaws could result in little-to-no income for a ski area, and in the worst-case scenario, a default on debts.
Yet the sport was growing in popularity. To keep up with the demand and beat the competition, the ski industry turned to snow-making.
In 1950, a trio of men who owned a company called Tey Manufacturers built the first snow-making machine. That year they tested the new technology at Mohawk Mountain in Connecticut and at Big Boulder in Pennsylvania. The reviews of the snow were largely positive, with one New York Times reporter describing it as “powder.” He continued, noting “it felt like the real thing.”
Snow-making expanded the range of winter climates where skiing was possible. Instead of needing snow, resorts simply needed enough days of below-freezing weather to maintain consistent snow cover on their slopes.
By 1952, the Concord, a hotel in the Catskills, began making snow on its small ski hill. To compete, Grossinger’s Hotel (the Concord’s stiffest competition) soon followed suit. And in places like the Mid-Atlantic, where skiing had previously been possible for only 20 to 30 days a year, snow-making allowed the industry to expand with promises of “guaranteed snow.” By 1959, more than 20 ski areas in New York and Pennsylvania boasted permanent snow-making systems.
In the early 1960s, ski areas in New England — where the hills were otherwise better suited for the sport — began to realize that this ability to manufacture snow had created new competition for them. That ignited a race to match these upstarts, beginning in 1963. It has yet to stop.
This competition changed the nature of skiing. Packed powder and blue ice became increasingly common. As a basic rule of thumb, temperatures in the teens or low 20s are ideal for making the dry-light snow perfect for skiing. But it is possible to make heavy-wet snow at warmer temperatures. Wet snow, however, is more likely to turn to ice. Yet Les Preston, then-president of Killington in Vermont, decided that regardless of its quality, people would ski provided there was snow.
History has largely proven him correct. Killington became renowned for its icy conditions, often boasting snow that former employee and current ski area consultant, Chris Diamond, half-jokingly called “bulletproof.”
By 1971, Killington had set the gold standard for snow-making, covering hundreds of skiable acres, top to bottom — even if the snow was less than perfect. As a result, it was possible to ski every day of the winter. When January thaws came around and melted snowpack, threatening important ski weekends such as Martin Luther King Day and Presidents’ Day holidays, New England resorts could simply rebuild their base, rather than closing and waiting for the next snowfall. Meanwhile, at places like Killington, skiing as early as Nov. 1 and as late as early April became routine.
By 1970, the technology had spread west. In Colorado, ski areas as varied as the Broadmoor (an exclusive hotel in Colorado Springs), Winter Park (which was owned by the city of Denver) and Vail (one of the largest resorts in the world) were making snow.
Then a massive snow-drought hit Colorado in 1976 — portending potential economic disaster. At the time, only four ski areas in Colorado had snow-making equipment. And the losses could pile up quickly. In January of 1977, the Aspen Times reported that the ski area had already lost $4 million before New Year’s Day. In contrast, Vail, with its artificial snow, was up and operating.
With skiers and executives in Aspen driving to Vail (their direct competition) to ski, Aspen invested in a four-year study of snow-making in an attempt to build the best system in the world. By 1980, all but three ski areas of the 24 members of Colorado Ski Country USA had invested in snow-making.
After another drought in 1983, ski areas in Wyoming and Idaho began investing in the technology, and during the drought-stricken decade of the 1990s, resorts in California (such as Sierra-at-Tahoe, Kirkwood and Heavenly) began to invest as well. Today more than 90 percent of ski areas in the United States use snow machines.
Even before the increasingly common droughts of the 21st century, snow-making was alleviating the financial risks associated with uneven annual snowfall. When conglomerates like American Skiing Company began to form in the 1990s, snow-making became a key part of their development strategy, regardless of what region the resort was located in.
Skiing is possible without snow-making equipment. But snow machines have made it more accessible by expanding the length of the season and the geographical destinations. According to statista.com, there were approximately 51.1 million skier visits during the 2019-20 ski season. That number would be impossible without snow machines.
With fires raging, and snow machines being used to protect key infrastructure, it is easy to get sucked into the idea that snow machines are a saving grace for the ski industry in the face of climate change. Not only do they make snow so that enthusiasts can ski during dry seasons, they are also protecting ski resorts from an increasingly real threat — fires.
However, for 70 years, snow-making has been so successful that, until recently, it allowed ski enthusiasts and the ski industry to turn a blind eye to climate change. Even as temperatures warmed, snow-making made it seem as though ski resorts could weather the storm. So the snow machines helped the industry survive, but in doing so, also delayed the visibility of climate change.
Nevertheless, the history of snow-making offers lessons for the future. The brilliance of using snow machines to mitigate damage from the Caldor fire has less to do with new technologies, and more to do with using technology and infrastructure that was already present. In the process, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Kirkwood and Heavenly successfully instituted a resilience plan without investing large sums of money, using more raw materials to build new machines or dramatically increasing their carbon footprint.
Rather than dreaming up and waiting for new technologies to adapt to climate change, the history of snow-making (for all the negatives associated with it) offers an important example of how old technologies can be used to adapt to a changing climate.
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September 09, 2021 at 05:00PM
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Perspective | In a new twist on an old tactic, ski resorts are making snow to fight fires - The Washington Post
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