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Sunridge's nearest neighbour, the Suncor refinery, looks ...
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So goes the common refrain on a night where the temperature has plummeted to the glacial minus 30s. I'm out at Sunridge Ski Area in the Strathcona Science Park shadowing the snowmaking crew and, yes, it is cold. Like, your-boogers-will-freeze-instantly cold.
As I'm suiting up in the lunchroom tucked away in the back of the main chalet the hardy men I'm following tonight-two-year snowmaker Jordan Cooper and 20-year veteran Jay Johnston-burst through the doors. Absolutely covered from parka hood to heavy Sorel boots in a thick layer of ice. A sympathy shiver runs through me as I think back to my days as a snowmaker and I feel a creeping ball of apprehension start to settle into my stomach.
Sunridge is built into the river valley in the buffer zone between Edmonton and Refinery Row, south of the Yellowhead as you cross the North Saskatchewan. Tonight it looks, well, quite beautiful. The white light of the metal halide floodlights at Sunridge make it appear as an oasis backlit by the ominous orange glow of the sodium lamps of Edmonton and the refineries surrounding it.
Sunridge's nearest neighbour, the Suncor refinery, looks especially foreboding. On such a cold night every stack, cooling tower and steam leak in the plant is creating a billowing cloud of condensed vapour that, combined with the eternal flame of Suncor's flare stack, makes the refinery look quite literally like hell frozen over.
Fortunately, the winds tonight keep the vast man-made cloud from Suncor away from the ski hill. But as Johnston explains, "The wind swirls through the river valley in every direction. And a couple hours later the winds will turn and head back the way they forecasted."
Add to that the fact that Sunridge is the highest point of elevation for miles and you can easily see why it can be challenging to make snow exactly where needed. When you are essentially blowing vast streams of air and water at high velocities into the sky, wind direction and speed are everything. Today during the day shift the winds had changed and it wasn't long before a snow gun was blowing straight into the wind, burying itself in snow and ice in the process.
As I jump onto the Ski-Doo Tundra 300 snowmobile with Jordan to check it out I swing my leg over the seat and hit the buggy whip rising out at the back. And promptly shatter the fiberglass or plastic shaft. Yes, it is that cold.
Jordan doesn't seem too fazed. Maybe it is simply the cost of doing business in the Canadian winter. "Let me get my key here," he says, twisting a pair of vise grips over the ignition switch. "Key snapped off," he adds. Later we'd deal with a frozen electronic reverse switch, using a pitch-axe to break off the ice around the gas cap before refueling. Oh well, at least the machine starts.
On the first round of the night, we spot the offending gun. Or rather the top of the nozzles protruding out of a snow bank. "We'll have to dig that out later," Jordan says, not exactly enthused with the prospect of digging through the ice and hardened snow. Jay later explains, "It's not a bad job if you keep on top of it, checking your guns every 20 minutes. It's when you sit down for a break that things can get away from you pretty fast."
At this stage of the season most of the guns are set up to make "whales," which look like the back of a whale as it crests the surface of the ocean. "It seems simple," Jay elaborates, "but you've got to keep on top of it. First you make a whale, then you put a gun on top of it and make another whale at the same height and put the gun on that one. But if you get that second whale too high the snow won't reach the backside of it and it'll look like it has herpes."
Herpes? "Yeah it'll look like it's got welts on it," he explains. "We make whales and then the groomer comes in the morning and smoothes them out," he goes on, "but we knocked the track off the groomer a few nights ago when it got up against a whale that was a little too solid, so you gotta watch that, too." Some of the whales are huge, up to two-and-a-half stories tall, "and the kids love them, they'll go over them in their skis and boards and pretty soon we'll see them ditch their boards and just climb up and play on them."
As we survey the rest of the guns most seem to be in good shape, but as Jay knows first hand, "when it's this cold you can make better snow, but you won't get near as much volume as when it's -15, -20." To me it sounds counter-intuitive but as Jay continues, "at these temperatures you have to deal with things freezing up."
We head over to a booster pump entombed in ice-without it there is not enough line pressure to run the hill's fan guns. It is covered in hoarding and there is a tiger torch running flat out to melt away the ice. This is a common procedure. The Sunridge snowmakers' equipment checklist has five essential items on it: mallet/hammer, shovel, tiger torch, torch lighter and propane tanks. "Had to put the torch to it" is common snowmaker jargon around here.
The only other way to prevent things from freezing off is to hit it with a big hammer. Which snowmakers do with abandon. I remember this a bit too slowly as a big chunk of ice is swept into the high-speed snow-gun spray from Jordan's liberal use of the hammer. "Maybe take pictures from behind the guns," I think to myself as I duck out of the way of ice shrapnel.
By now, we're all chilled to the bone so we drag a few frozen hoses back and await the shift relief. One of the midnight shift calls in and asks if he still has to come into work. "Yep, we make snow until it's -45," Jay says to the caller. "Yeah, we've had a few guys bail over the years because they couldn't handle the cold-some right in the middle of their shift." He then goes over a few it-was-so-cold-this-one-night stories-the occupation lends itself very well to this type of reminiscing. "But as long as you dress right you should be all right. Don't wear your trendy jacket that you wear to the mall because you'll freeze to death. Wear what the rednecks wear in the winter," he counsels, "and think about someplace warm-for me it's Costa Rica."
The midnight relief comes in and remarks that it read -40 C at home. "Yeah don't get me wrong, it's cold out there," Jay says, "But we'll never make it to March if we don't make snow." V
Choosing your weapon
Air/Water Guns
The most basic of snowmaking guns, these guns require a plant supplying them with both water and compressed air. Air and water are ejected from separate nozzles and mix in an airborne stream. When they get iced up the common procedure is to swap the water and air feeds to clear the fouled water nozzle. Easily transported from location to location.
Tower/Lance Guns
Mix water and air prior to ejecting it out of nozzles positioned on a long boom to give the air/water mixture as much hang time as possible to come down as fine snow crystals. Typically installed at heavily trafficked locations such as corners and are difficult to move around.
Fan Guns
These expensive guns typically have several banks of nozzles which allow the operator to vary the amount of water being ejected depending on the atmospheric conditions. They will usually have an onboard air compressor to supply the nucleation nozzle ring as well as a large fan to propel the water jets far into the air. They require a source of 480/600V three-phase electricity. They will produce an optimal amount of snow but nozzles will often plug off if the incoming water stream is not filtered properly. Some are mounted on towers and are immobile while others are often equipped with hooks to allow a snow groomer blade to lift and transport them easily.
Automatic vs. Manual
With manual guns the snowmaker will start/stop the guns and vary the amounts of air/water and the direction of discharge according to atmospheric and wind conditions. Newer electronically-controlled guns have onboard atmospheric sampling equipment as well as a processor to automate most of the operations. Snowmaking can be as simple as inputting the wetness of the snow desired into the computer and the gun will start and stop when necessary; open and close water hydrants; oscillate to blanket a larger area; turn itself leeward as the wind changes; and open and close valves electronically or pneumatically to continually produce the desired snow. These are obviously expensive but can be set up in a master/slave configuration whereby one fully automatic gun will control several downstream semi-automatic ones. V
Science/technology
On the surface the science involved in snowmaking seems self-evident. A stream of water blown into the cold air freezes and falls to ground as snow. In reality it's much more complex.
It starts with temperatures-obviously the colder the better. What isn't always clear is the role of humidity; according to the snowmaking chart at zero percent humidity you can make snow at temperatures as high as 6 C; at 100 percent humidity, it has to be at least -2 C.
Snowmakers will often use a psychrometer to measure wet-bulb and dry-bulb temperature and consult a chart to determine relative humidity; more sophisticated operations will use electronic hygrometers in combination with software hosted on a PC or on snow guns themselves.
As well, although you can make snow at warmer and more humid conditions the actual snow will have a high moisture content. Many hills (and patrons) prefer a more fluffy, powder snow which requires lower temperatures and humidity. Alternatively wet snow can freeze at which point a groomer equipped with a tiller can break up the snow into an ice powder.
The other less-understood factor involves the nucleation of snow crystals. Many snow guns are equipped with nucleation nozzles which combine air and water to form very fine snow nuclei which larger water droplets then bond to, forming larger snow crystals. Without this nucleation, water would "supercool" instead of freezing. Some operations will also introduce a nucleation agent-sometimes biological-into the snowmaking water supply to assist in nucleation.
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