More than a decade ago Tenney Mountain Ski Area in Plymouth, under a previous owner, bought a system that made artificial snow inside a shipping container, which it said would give it a leg up on starting the downhill season.
I wrote about it but the details escape me, since the story has been lost to the mists of time. As I recall it only lasted one season and was more of a gimmick than an actual benefit.
But the idea is still around and may have more legitimacy as winters shrink. Ski Ward, a tiny slope in Shrewsbury, Mass., has installed a Latitude 90 “snowmaking machine” that can produce fake snow when it’s as warm as 77 degrees. It’s basically snow guns inside a shipping container with a few technical tweaks.
Ski Ward says because of Latitude 90 it will be the first ski area in the country to open, at least on one bunny slope. It opened Oct. 23 in 2023 and will be aiming for a pre-November start this year, too.
An article in Powder.com (here it is) says similar systems is used at Sugar Bowl in California so they can open their tubing area for Halloween.
A different approach to getting a head start on skiing or snowmaking is being used by several ski areas, They create a lot of extra snow in late winter with traditional snow guns then cover it with a tarp, saving it all summer and fall to spread out as soon as temperatures fall.
And Tenney’s current owners are using a slightly different sort of snowmaking gun that they say makes it easier to create good snow during marginal days.
All this is needed, of course, as climate change makes old-timey winters a memory. The record-shattering El Nino in the south Pacific is worrisome, since the phenomenon is associated with warmer winters in the Northeast U.S.
