Snowmaking on a Budget Snow Mountain Ranch, CO April, 2016

Transcription

1 Snowmaking on a Budget Snow Mountain Ranch, CO April, 2016

2 Reese Brown Nordic Director SIA

3 Rising Tide Floats All Boats

4 The Season in the East courtesy of Rikert Nordic Center, Ripton VT

5 Main Ingredients ü Temperature ü Water ü Electricity

6 Most Important Resource At a minimum, a 1 kilometer trail, 13 feet wide, with 1 foot of snow will require 200,000 gallons of water. However, consider dri@, leaching, rain/thaw events.

7 Type of Snowguns Fan Guns Air / Water

8 Nordic Snowmaking Strategies 1. Portable pump and snowgun to target key terrain for special events. 2. Fixed pump stagon to deliver snow using a pipeline and mulgple snowguns in the stadium and trail. 3. Fixed pump stagon to stockpile snow in a large area and move the snow onto the trails with heavy equipment.

9 What s Your ObjecPve? 3 ConsideraPons 1. How much area do you want to cover? 2. What is the best distribugon strategy for you? 3. Which gun type is best for your applicagon?

10 Strategy 1 Rental Strategic Snow Placement Portable high pressure pump Sump pump 80 kw diesel generator HKD Fan Gun

11 Trapp Family Lodge Stowe, VT

12 Have water, will make snow.

13 Fans, Big Throw for Open Spaces

14 Strategy 1 Rental Monthly Fan Gun Rental $5,600 Air/Water Gun Rental $2,500 Pump Rental $5,600 Generator, 80 kw $3,000 Freight Expense TBD Total Monthly Expense $16,700

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21 Strategy 2 Self Contained Snowmaking

22 Strategy 5 acre field

23 Strategy 3a Snow DistribuPon by Pipe 1.2k

24 Snowmaking Control aka Book shop

25 Pipeline with Air & Water Hydrants

26 Pump Controls & Air Compressor

27 Laterals to Distribute Water

28 Portable HKD air/water guns

29 Scalable & Manageable Power: Chose to upgrade electric instead of buying diesel generator. They have the capability to offset a lot of their energy usage through net metering with solar panels. 2014: Energy use for the 1.2km loop was 6,615 kwh which equals $1,060 in electric charges but much of this cost was offset by solar panels. 2015: $1,400 in electric cost but offset by solar. 66 days open on snowmaking loop compared to 28 days on natural trails. Average 650,000 gallons of water pumped Average 300 hours of snowmaking Snowmaking results in 30+/- extra days open.

30 Strategy 3a Capital Investment Power $21,000 Extension of high voltage single- phase line Pipe $43, of 6 pipe (used) 1,500 of 2 pipe (used) Welding for hydrants and pump plaaorm Pumps $10,500 Two 3 phase 7.5 hp water pump With phase converters to single- phase Air compressors $8, hp single phase compressor. 35 CFM at 100 psi 7.5 hp single phase compressor, 23 CFM at 100 psi Snowguns $12,500 SV10 with sled SV5 with sled Total cost for snowmaking system $95,200

31 Proctor Andover, NH Snowmaking on 2.5k of trails

32 Strategy 3b Snow DistribuPon by Pipe Infrastructure Installed 8,000 of 4 pipe for water and air Pump roughly 1.2m gallons for their 2.5k Purchased 21 HKD air/water guns Installed 25 water and air hydrants 2 night snowmakers, 1 day

33 Strategy 3b Firepower & Capital Snowguns: 10 HKD Laser on sleds for trails 6 HKD SV10 on sleds for climbs 5 HKD SV10 towers (30 ) for stadium 21 guns running at all Pmes gets them open in under 40 hours. Investment into snowmaking roughly $300,000, without pumphouse.

34 Craesbury, VT Snowmaking on 5k of trails LC3 Low- Profit Business

35 OpPon 4 Snow DistribuPon by Machinery Snowplan 5k snowmaking trail network with of depth. 1k by Nov 15 2k loop shortly a@er 5k with le@ over snow Remaining stockpile of snow used for reinforcing thin areas.

36 Infrastructure Power Diesel generator, 200 kw 8 to 10 gallons/hour of fuel Using residual heat (500,000 BTU/hr) from exhaust & intercooler to heat buildings Pumping 15 hp pump at lake 60 hp high pressure pump ( psi) 2 million gallon limit Pipe 2600 of pipe: 6 steel mainline with 2 and 4 spurs Buried/frost free pipeline Snowguns 3 refurbished fan guns, 25hp fans, 10hp compressors

37 Pump stapon

38 BlasPng to Bury Pipe

39 Fixed Pump StaPon 3 Fan Guns

40 Build it, Load it

41 Distribute & Push

42 Results with Snowmaking Snowmaking lengthened season - both ends Increased skiers from 10,000-40,000 Races & special events increase Lodging has increased Achieved 150+ days open past few years 2015/16, horrible weather: 128 consecugve days open Would have barely opened without snowmaking On man- made snow this year 75% of the Gme On man- made snow 100% of the Gme for races (except marathon)

43 Strategy 4 OperaPonal & Capital 2 million gallons of water provides 10 acre feet, 16,000 bucket loads and 2,500 truck loads F350 load Gme = 45 seconds F450 load Gme = 75 seconds Budget 70 truck hours per kilometer of trail Labor 5 people (1 in snowcat, 3 in dump trucks, 1 in excavator) 5 pieces of equipment 300 hours of snowmaking average. This year 400 hours. Roughly $400,000 investment into snowmaking

44 Network & Learn From Others Sam Von Trapp, Trapp Family Lodge, VT Eli Enman, Sleepy Hollow, Hinesburg, VT Garry George, Proctor Academy, NH Lucas Schultz, VT Mike Hussey,Rikert Nordic Center, VT

45 Survey says Go bigger than you expect when planning Start the permiong process early Bury the pipeline when possible Design trails to get the most out of your infrastructure Make your system scalable Consider type of snowgun based on applicagon Do as much of the planning and construcgon in house Use your network of peers

46 And that s a wrap. Courtesy of Rikert Nordic Center, VT

47 Presenter (802)

48 Thank you