Every night, after skiers and riders have left the resorts, teams of groomers, ski patrollers and lift maintenance personnel take their place atop snowcats and sleds.
“It's pretty much day by day right now,” equipment operator Jay Sabatka said while grooming Park City Mountain's Canyons Village March 26. “Every night we save the mountain.”
Across town on March 25, Deer Valley slope grooming manager Jake Rindquist drove his snowcat up Silver Link, the small connector run from the top of the Carpenter lift to Silver Lake Lodge.
“We’re going to put this one back together tonight,” he said, explaining the process. “We’re going to grab all the snow from Ottobahn ... and we’re going to cover that dirt for however many days we can get it to stay covered.”
Stealing snow from one run to cover another is typical for the end of the season, but Rindquist said that stage arrived a month early this year.
Grooming teams work overnight to move snow around the mountain and create the pristine corduroy the resort is known for. At peak season, Rindquist estimated Deer Valley had 50 snowcats on the mountain every night.
But the recent heat wave wreaked havoc on the snowpack, he said it's “like pushing around water.”
On Park City’s Snowdancer run a day later, Sabatka compared the snow to a “Big Gulp” slushie, scooping it into piles with his blade.
“We have never had to strip snow and farm it like we've had to this year,” Sabatka said. “We've stripped runs top to bottom, [such as] Lookout, Doc’s Run.”
Stripping Doc’s Run this month was a monumental task. He said it took the Canyons-side groomers 10 days of around-the-clock work to move that snow down to the ski beach around the Orange Bubble Express.
Park City Mountain swapped out some groomers’ blades for buckets it bought this year to carry snow from run to run.
Rindquist said it’s not just the warmth that’s been a challenge this winter, but also the drought.
"Usually it’s not hard to make it from middle of January to middle of April in a normal year. Snowmaking is just kind of a luxury for us to get open earlier,” he said. “But it is literally the only thing holding us together right now."
Deer Valley announced March 26 it will close for the season Sunday, March 29.
Park City Mountain will close Mountain Village that day too. Canyons is scheduled to remain open until April.
Deer Valley Resort and Vail Resorts’ EpicPromise foundation are financial supporters of KPCW.
