Mountain Mechanics: Loon

Outside the shaping shack at Loon Mt. Park 

"Mountain mechanics was gnarly today. We learned how to make jumps and rails in a Terrain park. Loon has a separate brand than its terrain park because its terrain parks have such a great reputation and are so long. Loon has many different levels of terrain park and they are managed by a crew of snow boarders only. After, we went down to the snow making workshop to see the magic at work. Loon pumps 10,000 gallons of water a minute around the mountain from 3 sources. The snow cats that groom the trails at night for 8 hours cost between $575,000-300,000 based on size and break down often. "

-Alex T.

Jerry Train @ Loon

"Today I was able to meet with Bryan who was the park manager for the entire Terrain park at loon. He discussed what they can do and how they create different rails and boxes in their shop. He also discussed the different ways they can create jumps and how he is experienced in understanding the size of the park and what features can fit where. We met the maintenance crew and discussed how hard of a job using and working with the snow guns can be. They discussed where they got their water from and then they discussed how the old version of snow makers can give a wider variety of thickness and quality of snow, but the newer one is cheaper and much easier to run. They also discussed how there are over 350 different snow making hoses and how the air compressors can produce about 1,100 horse power each. They can use up to hundreds of thousands of gallons per hour, but it can cost up to $30,000 a day due to the amount of electricity being used. Overall this experience was great and I was able to finally go off some jumps with my alpine board."
-Garrett K.

Snowmaking Hoses

A snowmaker's headlamp

"We met with a man named Ken who explained to us the ins and outs of snowmaking. I was intrigued by this process because I didn't know the time and effort it took to create the artificial snow in which I skied on. Overall, the experience was extremely fun because I got to meet with people who worked on the mountain to learn the behind the scenes and also got to explore the mountain on my own." 

 -Michael D.

Where the snow is made!

"Today was a great day. I received the nick name "Air Cully" and Russo received the nick name of "Burn" for God knows what reason. It was cool meeting up with the terrain park manager. He told us a lot about his personal sponsors and how they tie in with Loon Mountain itself. Day one was an awesome experience with the group and I can't wait for day two." 

 -Cullin C.