‘Snow management’ at Tahoe resorts goes high-tech with lasers

At midnight, a slender moon hangs above the snowy Sierra Nevada, casting only a faint glow on a sheer cliff and the dark canyon below.

But snowcat operator “Bandit” Ferrante has laser-guided vision, measuring snow depth 150 feet ahead and to each side to sculpt the slopes with precision. By dawn, crowds will start arriving to ski and ride the weekend’s fresh powder.

“These advancements are changing the way we do things,” said Ferrante, 37, who drives a new $400,000 German-made PistenBully rig with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to prepare the trails. “I see exactly where we’re going, and what’s going on.”

After two winters of heavy snow, the snowfall so far this winter has been sporadic. While nature is always fickle, climate change could create less reliable snow, spelling hardship for the businesses and mountain communities that depend on storms for their economic survival.

So resorts seek to make and protect each precious flake. Big corporations running Palisades, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood and Mammoth Mountain have made major investments, worth many millions of dollars, in what’s dubbed “snow management.” With some daily lift tickets exceeding $250, the resorts seek to deliver a dependable high-end experience.

Initially just farm tractors on tracks, snowcats have evolved into machines of design, detailed craftsmanship and computer-driven tools.

Inside the warmth of his cab, with a chatty podcast for company, Ferrante monitors a computer screen with color-coded snow depths, guiding him on where to push and pull snow for the best coverage.

Its SNOWsat LiDAR remote sensing technology uses laser pulses to measure snow depth. With accuracy to within an inch, it can construct perfect snowboard half-pipes or World Cup ski race terrain.

The joystick that directs the 12-ton machine is smooth, responsive and comfortable to grasp. The blade shifts in 17 different directions, with wings to shovel the snow. With a sensor that detects incline, the powerful tiller automatically rises and falls when routes get steep.

It’s turned a once lonely and tedious task into a skill-driven profession.

“You keep learning new things,” said Ferrante, a South Lake Tahoe native with nearly 20 years of resort experience.  A tidy tattoo — a snowcat control stick — adorns his neck.

At competitive “Groomer Games” every spring, representatives of all California ski resorts gather to test their expertise by pushing a golf ball through a maze.

Innovations in snow-making tools — such as the $40,000 Super PoleCat — perform alchemy, mixing massive drafts of water, air and electricity to cover miles of runs. Some have built-in automated weather stations.

Snowcats maximize the efficiency of snowmaking. Some are simple utility vehicles, hauling things around the mountain. Others are “trooper carriers,” moving ski patrollers. “Dig rigs” have backhoes to excavate buried equipment.  A few have forks, for installing fences and seats on race days. The smallest cats are adroit at digging out chairlifts and clearing sidewalks.

“You use the right tool for the right job,” said Brendan Gibbons, director of snow surface at Palisades Tahoe.

The most prized snowcats at Palisades are the new LiDAR-equipped machines.

They are leading the fleets that are racing across the resort this weekend to groom freshly fallen powder, sending information by cell signal to the less well-equipped machines.

Until recently, snowcats relied on GPS to measure snow depth; the technology knows how high the machine is sitting above the ground. But this tool offers a limited view of what’s directly under the rig and front blade, not what lies ahead.

“It was a great start to this technology, but it only allowed us to see how deep the snow is where we’ve been, and where we are,” said Gibbons. “LIDAR shows us what the snow is before we get to it.”

LiDAR also measures the volume of piles of manmade snow, helping guide its use.

The tool is already in use in research and government agencies to study snow from the air. It helps water districts measure future water reserves. It can identify avalanche danger.

It works by sending out up to 200,000 laser pulses per second. Then it measures the time of flight — how long it takes the laser to hit the snow and bounce back to the instrument. It calculates distance by using the known speed of light and the time it takes the laser to travel.

In the summer, LiDAR builds a digital model of the bare terrain. In the winter, the groomers, known as “night crawlers,” creep along the mountain’s cold contours, taking snow measurements.

Managers study the freshly updated maps on their phones, then strategize a nighttime plan based on weather, wind, melting and skier traffic.

After a long day of wear and tear, LiDAR helps “clean up the holes, remove the moguls and return the slope back to a nice, perfect skiing surface,” said Brian Demarsest, a manager for Kassbohrer All Terrain Vehicles in Reno, which sells PistenBully (“trail worker” in German).

Snowcats no longer lurch and rock. An eight-hour shift “is like driving to L.A.,” said Gibbons.

The snowcat’s taco-shaped blade can turn in 17 directions. On each side of the blade is a wing that shoves the snow left or right.

Its weight compresses the snow as it rolls, squeezing out dangerous air pockets and creating a more firm surface. Each track works independently, so the rig can pivot. Cleats add traction.

In the back is a spinning barrel with teeth, which chews up the snow. The barrel’s spin speed is adjustable, influencing how much the flakes heat up and bind to each other. A comb, also adjustable, drags behind to deposit rows of perfect corduroy.

Grooming is still dangerous, with peril on slippery and avalanche-prone slopes. One recent winter, when winds hit 192 mph gusts, machines skidded on ice.

Ferrante arrives at Palisades in mid-afternoon from his home in Garnerville, Nevada, to get his assignment for the night’s “swing shift.” When he’s done, he’ll hand it off to a colleague on the graveyard shift that grooms until the lifts open. By 5 a.m., he’s in bed.

“I don’t get lonely,” said Ferrante, who drinks a thermos of black tea to stay alert. Food can be heated by the exhaust pipe.

Throughout the long night hours, operators coordinate with each other, traveling together when there’s avalanche danger. A winch can help secure a machine, allowing it to work on steep slopes.

Ferrante sees coyotes, deer, porcupines and occasional bears. One crew saw migrating ducks fall from the sky, lost in a storm.

His crew started the season with “track packing” to compress November’s snow. Now, with the arrival of a new storm, he’ll push snow into rigid “wind rows,” like fences, to catch blowing drifts; later teams will smooth them out. Post-storm priorities are roads, then ramps, then runs.

His discipline, largely unrecognized by resort visitors, is building the foundation for a whole season of sport.

“There is a ‘skill ceiling’ that’s infinite,” said Ferrante. “You’re never going to be the very best. You’re never going to figure it all out.”