How To Make Snow

Snow. It's the single most important ingredient to a great day on the slopes.

Since Mad River Mountain operates in the fickle Midwest winters, sometimes we need to help Mother Nature along. What separates Mad River Mountain from the traditional ski area is the level of expertise in snowmaking and our capacity of snowmaking. The making and caring for snow by expert grooming is core to the way we operate and provides you with the best experience possible.

The Basics Of Snowmaking

Snow, by definition, is "crystallized ice particles having the physical integrity and the strength to maintain their shape." Snow is normally created by Mother Nature, but when Mother Nature does not deliver and snow is needed for ski resorts, movie-making, crop protection or for any other reason, that's when the snowmakers step in.

First, the foundation: machine made snow is REAL snow. There's nothing fake or artificial about it. Snow crystals - however they're produced - are simply tiny crystals of frozen water.
In nature, evaporation of water from the ground, lakes, rivers and the oceans creates moisture in the atmosphere. This moisture condenses, and when the weight of the moisture exceeds the capacity of the air to keep it aloft, it falls to the ground. Under the proper conditions, including low temperatures and low humidity, it falls as snow. Often the crystals pick up more moisture as they fall, resulting in the variety of shapes for which snow is famous.

Machine-made snow shortcuts the process. There's no evaporation phase; the water is pumped as a liquid from a pond, reservoir or lake. The water is then forced into a specialized nozzle or "gun" where it collides with highly pressurized air. The nozzles can be adjusted to vary the size of the snow. The compressed air shatters the stream of water into tiny particles and launches them into the air.

From here, the process is similar to nature: the droplet of water freezes and falls to the ground, called “hang time” in the industry. The only difference is that the water doesn't have as much time to freeze before it hits the ground because snowguns can range between 3 feet to 25 feet above the ground. Because of this, the temperature needs to be colder than freezing with low humidity so that the droplets will freeze faster and not collect water (melting them) on their way down.