AS evening falls and you’re winding down after a day on the mountain, Len Dobell is briefing his team for a full night’s work.
As general manager of operations at Hotham, Len and his team of snowmakers and groomers work through the night to transform the mountain and continually provide mountain visitors with the best terrain and snow conditions possible.
“In the last 18 months Hotham have purchased eight new, state–of–the–art mobile snow guns,” he said.
“It’s great to see our continuous investment in getting the runs our guests love open sooner and offering the best possible snow conditions all season long”.
The grooming and snowmaking crews at Mt Hotham and Falls Creek are the hidden heroes behind your snow holiday.
It was their skilled and dedicated work that produced the goods and ensured skiable terrain to make up for Mother Nature’s shortfall earlier in the season.
And while plentiful natural dumps in July have helped set both resorts up for the remainder of the season with snow depths well in excess of a metre, the mountains’ teams won’t stop.
Every night the hardworking team sculpt the slopes and paint with snow to craft the terrain that facilitates and becomes the background of your winter memories.
“We have about seven groomers and five snowmakers who work the night shift each night,” said Len.
Made up of nocturnal creatures, the night shift is fondly referred to as the graveyard shift and can see crew members starting at 4.30pm and work through the night, often finishing at 5am, or until lifts open the next morning.
Snowmaking has been a key focus for Hotham and Falls Creek and significant investments made by both resorts have helped stabilise an industry reliant on mother nature, providing snow–goers and business owners alike with confidence each season.
Snowmaking has been especially valuable for the resorts to safely open terrain earlier in the season.
“This season in the lead up to Hotham’s opening weekend, we produced over 8500 cubic meters of snow each night,” said Len.
“We contributed an extra 69,000 cubic metres of snow to opening weekend – enough to fill over 27 Olympic size swimming pools.
“Early snowmaking provides the opportunity to produce a base product that is extremely resilient and sets the resort up to continuously offer quality snow for guests.”
Investing in snowmaking
Over the past five years, Hotham has focused heavily on developing its snowmaking and grooming capabilities.
A total investment of $4.9 million over the period has increased the skiable area covered by snowmaking by 40 per cent.
Today, Hotham boasts 112 snow guns covering 33 hectares of skiable terrain.
As part of the Hotham team for over 20 years, Len has been involved in the installation and planning of all snowmaking equipment now running at Hotham.
“We started to take snowmaking really seriously in 1999,” he said.
“Since then, snowmaking has become an integral part of offering our guests reliable snow conditions.”
Across the hill, Falls Creek has invested $1.88 million into snowmaking and grooming over the past two years, the biggest investment made by the resort in 10 years.
With new snow guns along crowd favourite runs including Wombats Ramble and Main Street, the fleet of snowmaking machines has the ability to efficiently make snow at every opportunity.
“The addition of 29 new snow guns means our guests can enjoy the best possible terrain all season long,” said Danny Lucas, slope operations manager at Falls Creek.
“These powerful machines produce quality snow at every opportunity, with impressive efficiency and usability.
“Pairing them with new expansions to our grooming fleet means we’re able to produce more snow than ever before while making it easier to prepare terrain for guests to enjoy each day.”
With the 2021 winter season well on the way for Falls Creek and Hotham, the mountain teams have already helped to shape the days spent on the mountain for many visiting guests.
Like previous seasons, they will continue their work behind the scenes being the unsung heroes of your winter memories.
Alpine snowmaking recipe
• ambient temperatures below –1.5°C
• roughly 80% humidity
• water
When the ingredients are right, water is blasted into the air. Hitting the cold environment, it transforms into snow and falls back into the resort, ready for the groomers to create the best and safest terrain possible.
