Wildcat Mountain is working this summer on a major overhaul to its snowmaking system.
The ski area barely rolled up the hose for this past season, closing with snow still on the mountain in late April.
But now Peak Resorts, the owners of Wildcat and Attitash, are embarking on a $2 million capital improvement project at the mountain, which will ensure product, even if Old Man Winter doesn’t deliver.
It includes more than nine miles of new snowmaking pipe snaking up and down the more than 2,100 vertical feet of skiing on mountain.
Also, there will be more than 150 new high output/high efficiency snow guns and other state-of-the-art facilities as part of a total infrastructure revitalization.
This project is expected to be completed before the start of the 2014/2015 winter season.
Officials said it will dramatically improve the snowmaking efficiency and output of New England’s only ski area entirely situated within National Forest Service land.
Wildcat has 225 acres of skiing terrain that include wide-groomed trails, glades, bumps, steeps and tree skiing.
With one of the highest summit elevations in the state, at 4,062 feet, snow comes early and stays late. On average, about 200 inches fall at Wildcat.
Snowmaking currently covers 90 percent of the terrain but the older equipment is no match for today’s technology.
This past winter, officials at Wildcat worked with some of the industry’s leading snowmaking equipment manufacturers in what is believed to be one of the largest scale demonstration projects ever conducted at any mountain in the East.
Following successful tests in a variety of weather conditions, deliveries of new snow guns from HKD and Snow Logic will be arriving at the mountain this summer.
A major goal of this effort is to improve how efficiently the snowmaking system operates, which was a factor when deciding which technology to purchase.
“Today’s snowmaking technology is so impressive, we estimate Wildcat will burn roughly 40,000 less gallons of diesel fuel annually as a result of this upgrade,” said Peak Resorts’ Northeast Project Manager, Brendan Ryan. “All of the components of this project will ultimately lead to using less power and burning less fuel while producing more, high quality snow.”
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