The secret is out: how Snow Farming can be used to open earlier in an economic way.
Snow Farming is a method that enables the storage and conservation of produced snow from one season to the next. Using snow produced in the prior season to open earlier means that athletes in the region have a longer training season and can establish themselves as a top player in snow sports while being a more economical route for our customers.
Snow Makers has designed and installed three Snow Farms in Jamtland county in Sweden.
The ski areas are located in Östersund, Bruksvallarna and Vålådalen.
Östersund started its first snow-farming project in 2005. 60,000m3 of produced snow is made every year from January to March and then covered with a layer of saw dust for protection from sunshine and rain. Thanks to this innovative concept, these three ski arenas offer full length ski tracks from early October which is two months before temperatures would permit traditional snow making.
All three snow farms use the new SMI Super Puma to produce the piles. The big throw from the Super Puma is perfect for creating high piles of snow that are appropriate for snow farming.
But snow farming isn’t the only solution that we provide these customers.
Bruksvallarna, who utilizes snow farming to open earlier, also has the biggest snow system in the Nordic for cross country skiing. Last summer SMI Snow Makers installed 70 Axis and Viking V2 sticks, a feeding pipe and a 500kW high pressure pump station. For this coming season Snow Makers just finished installing several kilometeres of pipeline and 80 Axis guns. All 80 guns are the new Axis Narrow Trail which is optimal for snow production throughout the season.
