If you’re an alpine skier, you are familiar with snowmaking and know it is vital for resorts and surrounding communities in order to sell tickets and meals and beverages, fill beds, provide jobs, generate taxes and so much more.

Snowmaking is less of a given at cross country areas in the U.S. and Canada, although it present at roughly 70 sites, with the number increasing each year. The most extensive XC systems are generally at venues hosting World Cup and Olympic races, such as  Soldier Hollow, UT; Canmore, AB; Mt. Van Hoevenberg, NY; Whistler Olympic Park, BC.

But there are other Nordic operations which have made major investments in snowmaking, including Ariens Nordic, MadNorSki and the Birkebeiner trails in Wisconsin; Forbush Corner, MI; Tahoe Donner, CA; several private schools and colleges with XC teams in New England; and clubs like Caledonia Nordic inBC; Bridger Ski Foundation, MT; and Nakkertok Nordic, QC.

Curiously, few XC operations owned by alpine ski areas have added substantial snowmaking.

Evolution of XC Snowfarming

Once upon a time, “snow farming” in the cross country ski world meant doing what you could to keep whatever falls from the sky. Back in the early 1970s, when I got in the business of designing and maintaining trails, that often meant simple, logical, ongoing, but time-consuming measures. These generally included routing trails to optimize snowfall; removing protruding rocks; trimming overhanging conifers; cleaning up debris after a storm, etc.

A few sophisticated venues would improve surfaces with grass or wood chips; snowfencing to take advantage of wind-created drifts for later re-distribution; mitigation and re-routing for wet areas where melt and ice were concerns, using culverts, adding fill when possible; bridges with railing and kickboards to prevent “bleeding” off edges and allow melt to drain off; removing encroaching brush, etc.

Not elaborate measures, but manpower-intensive. And of course, we would shovel snow onto the trails. So we learned the value of packing and “age-hardening” through machine-grooming snow from the moment it fell.

In the West, the drought winter of 1976/77 and another miserable season in 1980/81 made us more conscious of weather vulnerability. By then, Eastern and Midwestern operations in the U.S. and Canada were well aware that once-predictable winters would be interspersed with periods of melt.

XC Snowmaking

Over the years, XC snow-saving technology has evolved to include man-made snow. The earliest snowmaking I can recall was Weston Ski Track in the mid-1970s (they are still going strong), on a golf course near Boston.

There were some additional areas, but Nordic snowmaking has become relatively frequent only in the past dozen years or so. Olympic sites seem to be the primary exception, with Canmore Nordic Centre probably the earliest, around 1988, and Soldier Hollow in 2002.

Several of these sites include professionally designed trails with snowmaking. Trail planner John Morton of Morton Trails in Vermont has often combined the two. Some of Morty’s projects are Ariens Nordic; Rikert Ski Touring Center, VT (Middlebury College); Oak Hill, NH (Dartmouth College); Dublin School, NH; and Kents Hill School, ME.

Snowmaking companies increasingly see XC as a significant if smaller-than-alpine market.

The Next Step: Keeping What You Get

The basic principle is that when you have enough snow (preferably man-made stuff because of its density/longevity), your priority is to coddle it. Rain, sunshine, warm temperatures, and especially wind can wreak havoc on piles of snow that could otherwise prolong the ski season.

Roughly 20 years ago, XC operators in Europe – especially those involved with early season high-level races – started using wood chips and sawdust to preserve snow throughout the summer. This often meant that you could open some trails when your neighbors were still sighing about the weather.

Craftsbury Nordic in Vermont, Canmore Nordic Centre in Alberta, and Whistler Olympic Park, BC, have used wood products to protect piled man-made snow between closing in the spring and opening in the fall.

The three goals of starting operations on an early, predicted date are hosting events, providing on-snow training opportunities for individuals and teams, plus drawing recreational skiers. This timing can be vital to both ski operations and their local economies.

Most Federation International du Ski (FIS) and International Biathlon Union (IBU) XC race venues already use woodchips and/or sawdust. Chips a couple of feet deep insulate very well (summer loss is as little as 12%), but they have a number of drawbacks – growing cost, longevity, disposal, dust and debris rising to the surface, separation from snow in the fall, acidifying soil, leaching runoff, etc.

A Finnish company, Snow Secure, has developed white extruded polystyrene blankets that are now being used in Europe for both alpine and XC and has been honored for its resilience and sustainability. (Full disclosure: Snow Secure is one of my clients and we are introducing it to XC areas in both the U.S. and Canada, with Soldier Hollow, UT, our first customer.) Currently, they are working with four alpine resorts in North America, including Sun Peaks, BC and Bogus Basin, ID.

Shapes for snow piles are tailored to the site. Ideally, the snow piles are made when temperatures are coldest in winter, providing dramatic savings in water and energy usage as opposed to snowmaking in the fall; packed into layers; and covered with foam mats. At XC World Cup venue Ruka in Finland, there are three piles configured like bread loafs, each about the size of a football field – around 220’ x 110’ x 25’ high and pretty formidable looking. That’s about 14,000 cubic meters of snow when produced in the winter.

It generally becomes a lot more dense while stored, say 10,000 cubic meters by the time it’s uncovered in autumn. When spread out in the fall, this can translate into roughly 3 kilometers of trails covered by snow 1’ deep by 20’ wide. These synthetics provide effective insulation in temperatures as warm as 100 °F, even when venues such as Ruka have perpetual summer daylight.

Their stored snow is good quality for spreading, grooming, and skiing, although the system is not quite as efficient as wood chips for preserving snow. The materials are durable and long-lived (10+ years). Installation and uncovering the snow is swift and simple, then it’s spread. Instead of eventually heading to a landfill, like wood products, the materials can eventually be collected, then can be routed to recycling or energy recovery.

The Future of Snow Storage

Complexities include cost, finding a convenient summer location for the piled snow, and winter storage of the insulating materials. But the word is getting out that there’s an option to losing vital parts of early season operations. I predict that in the next few years, we’ll see at least a half-dozen more North American XC areas – more and sooner for alpine resorts – that adopt snow storage as a case of “Can’t live without it.”