Tubing Done Right, but Without Snow

Okay so as most of you should know, I work on the Tubing Hill (also called Adventure Point). Midwest people probably read this as a sledding hill done on large tubes, and for this you are sadly mistaken. We finally have some snow up there, about 20% of what we need to be open but still this is huge. The point will gladly serve 120 guests per hour and we are open noon to 8 pm Wednesday thru Sunday (closed for grooming one hour each day). This means that we throw up to 840 people down a 500 foot slope that can lose up to 200 vertical feet. This means speeds up to 40 or 50 mph are possible. Put simply: This isn't your stereotypical "hill" and it just may make you puke.

Okay enough of that, a snow update. It is warm, Al Gore is not writing fiction, and global warming is threatening Keystone. It is finally going to stay below freezing for a prolonged period of time. At this time last year almost 4 feet of NATURAL snow had fallen on Summit County. This year we haven't even made 4 feet of snow. Three of 121 runs are open, last year over 70 were open. This is screwy, not to mention the Tubing Hill should have open the day before Thanksgiving, not so this year.

See, there is this thing called the Denver Tunnel, it runs from Denver to about where I am living (well a little further). Vail Resorts (consisting of Keystone, Breckenridge, Vail, and Beaver Creek Resorts) relies heavily on and has nearly exclusive rights to this Tunnel. Keystone has the capacity to pump 5000 gallons per minute (you read right) of water out of this tunnel non-stop in its snow making process. The Resort has been using 1200 gallons per minute for the last month. The tunnel was drained in September, unbeknownst to Vail Resorts and it takes a long time to fill that large of tube. Therefore the resorts have waited by to turn the pumps on and run the snow guns at full blast. Finally as of tonight the guns, all 100 odd some guns, can run at full blast. Oh yeah and finally that global warming thing went away and it is cold enough for snow to actually form.

That is the reason I'm not "working" but I've been keeping busy. Here are picture of what the beginning of Adventure Point looks like, oh yeah it snowed today and our snow guns were blasting none stop, they're loud. To give you an idea of my working life, here are some pictures from Monday.

This is the Hooveyer (named for my boss Matt Hoover). This is our lift, a magic carpet ride of 420 feet. It takes about 3 minutes (at full speed) to get to the top, pretty sweet.

It is dark cause it is snowing, we were cleaning off the lift (that is Jeff on the lift) and Matt was driving the Sno-Cat (mini-me). Just the beginning of snow, we need more.

Okay, yeah I took a picture of the snow guns. What you need to realize is that they are as loud as jet engines and one can pump out enough snow in 24 hours to cover a football field with 6 feet of snow.

And that's all, pray for snow. I already have 6 days of skiing this season, probably get some more in tomorrow.