By Dan Balkin
There are luxury European sports cars that cost $530,000 and can achieve speeds approaching 200mph. Skiers and Snowboarders at HoliMont, who savor manicured ski slopes, prefer a $530,000 European snow grooming machine which tops out at 11mph. HoliMont recently purchased a new, state-of-the-art groomer from the German manufacturer Pisten Bully. Pisten is the German word for slopes, and Germans also use the word “bully” in the same context we do. Therefore, “Pisten Bully” is a clever Germanic play on words that essentially means this powerful machine can “Bully Skied-Out Slopes” back into groomed snow. HoliMont Gm Ed Youmans, while climbing the ski area management ladder, often groomed slopes at resorts where he worked in the West. He informs us that a grooming machine operator is using the plow in the front and the tiller in the back to control the process in three dimensions: Side-to-side, up and down, and forward and back.
I had the pleasure of riding along with expert groomer Bill Smith. Bill, a native son of nearby East Otto, NY, explained that grooming machines have undergone an evolution in the 36 years he has been at HoliMont. The newest machines are wider (for more stability), faster, and more powerful. The cockpit where Bill sat was equipped with several computer screens. These screens are linked to a system called “Snow Sat” where HoliMont had drones fly over the length and breadth of our slopes in the summer and precisely measure and record the snowless topographical features. In winter, the information provided by SnowSat can tell Bill, on his computer screen, the precise snow depth and pitch of the slope in degrees. As we rolled along, Bill kindly amused me when I frequently asked him for the current snow depth and pitch of the slope. The snow depth hovered between 48 – 60 inches, a tribute to our dedicated snowmakers. As we swung around onto the summit of Greer Hill and began to descend, I asked Bill how the incline progressively changes in degrees on the upper and steeper portion of the slope. Over a span of about ten seconds, while Bill was simultaneously grooming the snow, he said to me “24 – 26 – 28.” In other words, the uppermost pitch of Greer Hill becomes progressively steeper and max’s out at 28 degrees until the pitch eases about halfway down the run.
That was fascinating, but I was most mesmerized by Bill’s remarkably soft and sophisticated touch for grooming the snow. Before I learned anything about this process, I assumed most of the work was done by the tiller in the back that creates the corduroy pattern in the snow. Wrong. The gigantic plow in the front of the machine and the tiller in the back, both deftly adjusted by Bill, work in unison. There had been snowfall that day, and skier traffic had sliced the snow and created small moguls in many places. To use a Wild West metaphor, the churned-up snow is the outlaw and the plow is the frontier Sherriff. Using hydraulics, Bill can adjust the plow to turn at almost any imaginable angle, and it has “wings” on each side that can be extended or retracted to accommodate wider or tighter spaces. Wherever we went, while looking through the front window, plowed snow – just deep enough to smooth out the slope without gouging the snow surface – would be churning and tumbling along almost the entire width and height of the plow. But then, as I often did that night, turning my head and looking out the back window, it was as if one was watching a magic show. The precisely plowed and churning snow in the front was transformed into perfectly smooth corduroy snow by Bill’s control of the tiller in the back. Bill’s expertise in operating this gigantic and powerful Pisten Bully became yet more evident when he softly manipulated both the plow and tiller to carefully groom the tight spots around exit and exit ramps for the chair lifts. Bill and other groomers are alone at night, but the forests’ usual suspects – fox, porcupine, squirrels, and deer – make nocturnal appearances! Bill, and all our dedicated groomers, thanks for your unique and invaluable contributions to creating HoliMont’s skiing and riding paradise!