If you’ve ever been to Snow Creek, a ski resort just outside of Kansas City, you’ll see several feet of snow, whether it’s cold or warm.
Darin Pond with Snow Creek said it’s possible because of the snow guns scattered throughout the resort.
“With the help of 60 snow guns all spread out throughout the hill, we're able to make up to 12 inches in a 24-hour time period,” Pond said.
The snow guns blow only when it’s a certain temperature outside.
“28 degrees or below, we turn on all the guns,” Pond said. “We can blow up to 3,700 gallons of water through them, up to 3,700 gallons of water through them a minute. And when that water hits that cold air, it crystallizes and drops to the ground in the form of snow."
Pond said this allows the resort to have feet of snow, even when it’s sunny out.
“We planned it being in the Midwest, and it still being early in the season, we planned on the temperatures going up and going back down,” he said. “So we combat that by making a lot, a lot of snow and as you look up our hill and you see the rollers out there, there's a lot of snow out there.”
Crews are able to push the snow around where it needs to be for skiing, snowboarding and snow-tubing.
“We cheat Mother Nature a bit here and we’ve been doing it for 31 years, so we’ve gotten pretty good at it,” Pond said.
The resort had its season opening December 16 and hopes to stay open up through the beginning of March.
Beginning December 24, Snow Creek has Holiday Special Hours. It’ll last until January 2, 2017.
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Rae Daniel can be reached at Rae.Daniel@KSHB.com.
