Loon Mountain Resort

Mother Nature has been less than generous with the amount of natural snow She’s provided the Northeast this winter, so New England ski areas have had to rely heavily on making their own.  Even during winters with substantial snowfall, most--if not all--New England ski resorts will make their own snow.

So it should come as no surprise that much like a lot of other things in life, we've come to take snowmaking for granted.  It's winter, it's cold, so there will be snow on the trails, like it has always been, right?  Wrong.  The production of artificial snow did not really become a standard practice on ski terrain and New Hampshire mountain resorts until the late 1960s or early '70s. Prior to then, we made do with what nature provided, and as you can imagine, conditions  were sometimes pretty rough.   

So to what, or whom, do we owe our thanks for inventing the technology that helps provide us with the great snow cover we've come to expect every winter?  Believe it or not, the first snowmaking "gun" was "discovered" quite by accident.  In the late '40s Canadian researchers were studying the effect of rime ice on jet engines. In an effort to simulate natural cold weather conditions, engineers sprayed water into the air just in front a jet engine's intake in a wind tunnel. 

They did not produce any rime ice, but they did have to stop the engine frequently to shovel the snow out of the way.  Not being interested in making snow, they did not file any patents, but they did mention the phenomena in their scientific journals.  Others took note of what was written. 

In the early 1950s, Wayne Pierce, an engineer/inventor in Connecticut had the idea that he could make snow if he blew droplets of water through freezing air.  Using a paint spray compressor, nozzle, and some garden hose, he and his partners created a machine that made snow.  His company was granted a basic-process patent, and they installed a few of their machines at a local New England ski area but never went very far with their business. Throughout the 1960s, several other "inventors" improved, developed, and patented various  snowmaking machine variations, and the use of and reliance on artificial snowmaking machines slowly became a standard practice  throughout much of the ski industry.

Like yellow sticky notepads and so many other inventions we all take for granted, the snowmaking machine also has its roots in accidental discovery. Who would think that work on a jet engine would be the real origin of the great skiing and riding conditions we expect every time we head for the mountains?  So, the next time you hear the F-15s and F-16s playing overhead, remember, strange as it may seem, those high-flying streaks way up in the blue are distant cousins to the machines that helped produce the surface you’re playing on.  Seemingly strange, but true.