Ski areas learned a long time ago that Mother Nature, on occasion, could use a helping hand ... so they came up with snowmaking.
Now, when there are no clouds and no snow in the forecast, resorts can simply turn on the guns and make snow. And they can therefore provide good skiing even in lean years.
It has, in fact, gotten so sophisticated that computers have now taken over a lot of the responsibility.
Deer Valley has computerized snow guns, programmed to sense ideal snowmaking conditions, and can begin spewing out the white flakes in the middle of the night and continued operating well into the morning hours, much to the delight of the staff.
With a simple click of a mouse, a computer operator can automatically call for snow when conditions are right — and walk away.
The computer then tells each snow gun when to turn on or off and which of 20-plus kinds of snow to make, from extremely dry to extremely wet.
Despite long periods between snow, with snowmaking and 7 inches of new snow that recently fell, bringing the season total to 6 feet, Snowbird opened two additional chairlifts over the weekend and now has 75 percent of its terrain open to the public.
Making snow dates back to the 1950s in New England. Ski areas found themselves slim on snow, so they decided to make it using garden hoses, sprinklers and compressed air. Soon, snowmaking companies started to spring up.
The air/water mixture is still used today, but on a larger scale. No more garden hoses and sprinklers. Among the new innovations is the snow fan. A large fan pushes water from nozzles out onto the slopes in the form of snow. The newest innovation is a snow gun that uses only water — no electricity or compressed air.
The amount of snow that can be made depends on a number of factors — temperature, relative humidity, wind, water temperature, volume of water, volume of compressed air and the size of the nozzle.
In Utah, historical temperature readings suggest there are about 200 hours of good snowmaking time in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and much more time in the weeks after.
Guns can start making flakes, on demand, when temperatures reach 28 degrees.
Deer Valley has about 150 snow guns spread over its slopes. Between 40 and 50 guns can be in operation at any one time. Once the snow has piled up, snowcats then move in to distribute it over the slopes.
Snowbasin has one of the world's most sophisticated snowmaking systems.
Buried in the slopes is enough wire to tie the northern and southern tips of Utah together, enough pipe to connect Salt Lake City with Ogden, with several miles to spare, more than 500 snow guns, some as tall as a home, and a book of simple instructions.
Which means that under starry, cloudless skies, operators can dial up the desired snow, and out will come snow as light and soft as any Mother Nature could make.
To install, it took more than 300 miles of wiring, 60 miles of electrical conduit, 40 miles of pipe and a snow gun every couple hundred feet — from the top of the mountain to the bottom.
One thing that makes this system so special is that each pool of five snow guns is connected to a weather monitoring station that keeps a computer constantly updated on what mixtures of air and water are needed to make the best snow.
What this means is snow can be produced with the same precise consistency at the top of the mountain as at the bottom, despite the differences in temperature and humidity.
Each snow gun covers an area 120 feet by 120 feet. And, under ideal conditions, which is a 10-degree wet bulb temperature, the resort can run up to 60 snow guns at a time and make up to four inches of powder snow from each gun in a 10-hour period.
All of Utah's 13 resorts have snowmaking capabilities. Some can cover more areas than others, but all have the ability to supplement natural snowfall to make for better skiing.