Left: A team of 10 to 20 folks wield scythes on the Mad River Glen trails that can’t be mowed with the ski area’s Aebi slope tractor.
GETTING TRAILS READY FOR WINTER
Right: Depending on terrain, equipment like the Ski Hill Mulcher—a front-end attachment for snow- cats—can trim trail grass to golf-course fairway height.
is a little more modern than the scything used on the rest of the mountain. On trails too steep for safe use of a tractor (all of which are non-snowmak- ing trails), Mad River turns to a 10- to 20-person scythe team. (The ski area rewards the scythe team with a combi- nation of pay and season passes.) One advantage of going the scythe route is that the configuration of a scythe allows the team to reach around the many sub- tle—and some not-so-subtle—contours and crevices that define Mad River’s famously challenging terrain. As an alternative to coping with such unevenness, some areas might be inclined to blast rock or push around dirt to create a more even surface and perhaps enable mechanical mowing. But Mad River wouldn’t be Mad River if trail surfaces were all buffed smooth. Cutting by machine. According to general manager Matt Lillard, Mad River has, since 2018, been using an Aebi slope tractor, a low-profile machine used at many resorts, to mow flatter trails. Before that, the ski area used a more traditional tractor with a brush cutter on the back, the kind of stuff that has been going on in Vermont land management since before there were ski areas. But the Aebi tractor, says Lillard, is able to cut “closer to the ground.” Of course, every inch of brush and grass cropped closer equates more or less to an inch less snow needed for skiable coverage. MULCHING BY MACHINE Neighboring Sugarbush employs a sim- ilar combination of machine mowing and manual work, although with a slight uptick in technological modernity. Until recently, Sugarbush, like Mad River, had used a standard tractor with a brush-hog
attachment to mow its lower-angled ter- rain. But it has since moved on to using a PistenBully 600 equipped with a Ski Hill Mulcher, a device that can be used with any snow groomer with a high-pressure hydrostatic drive. The new arrangement, says VP of mountain operations Pat Kon- vicka, is not only safer (tractors aren’t nearly as stable as groomers) but has also allowed the resort to mow terrain that had previously been too challenging (i.e., unsafe) for the tractor. Nick Quail of the St. George Com- pany, maker of the Ski Hill Mulcher, says that, depending on the terrain, the mulcher can reduce the grass height to a tightly cropped level equivalent to a golf-course fairway. For steeper trails, the mulcher can also operate on a winch cat. The modern alternative to the scythe. Winching, however, is not the method Sugarbush chooses in reduc- ing brush on its steeper trails. Instead, the resort hires a team from Horizons Forestry, a Virginia-based company that provides forestry and land-management services to both private and public enti- ties. Like the scythe-wielders at Mad River, the Horizons team, more mod- ernly equipped with hand-held motor- ized brush cutters, whacks its way down steeper terrain to reduce the trail brush and grass to an inches-high stubble. In addition, Sugarbush has, unlike Mad River, done some trail contouring
to smooth out rough spots and enable a more even distribution of snow. Konvic- ka says that the resort has used loaders and excavators to move dirt and grass to cover rock ledges, and is looking into more extensive contouring using a rock hammer. Obviously, any resort needs to assess its character, or the character of any par- ticular trail, to determine how much con- touring is appropriate without impinging on the skier experience—uneven terrain can present challenges advanced skiers enjoy. The Sugarbush and Mad River con- trast in the two areas’ approach to con- touring is a good paradigm. MANAGING RUNOFF Out on the West Coast, The Summit at Snoqualmie in Washington relies almost entirely on natural snow, so the resort does a lot of work to allow trails to open with minimal snow, and to keep the snow that falls—especially important as climate change puts a dent in The Sum- mit’s average annual snowfall, which is about 420 inches since 1949-50, but has averaged 341 inches for the last 10 years. And its wet, maritime climate can make snow management a real challenge, according to the resort’s vice president of operations Justin Howard. Managing water runoff is the biggest issue. The clearing, upgrading, and rout- ing of diversionary infrastructure is a
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