According to Dictionary.com Corduroy is defined as follows:
/ˈkɔr
dəˌrɔɪ, ˌkɔr- a cotton-filling pile fabric with lengthwise cords or ridges.
- corduroys, trousers made of this fabric.
Now to us, this terms means something different. It looks like a white version of the pants that make that zooot-zoot-zooot sound when you walk, still it's something so much more fun. On a daily basis 70% or more of our mountain is covered in it. Recently, I had the privilege of taking a CAT ride with the Grooming Supervisor at Sierra-at-Tahoe and it proved to be educational as well as really cool experience. It was interesting to be on the other side of the whole operation. Not unlike you, most days I'm just messing up those perfectly spaced ridges.
Sierra Resort with its well oiled grooming team, takes pain staking efforts to manicure it's slopes to the best of it's capacity on a daily basis. We are proud of the maintenance of our snow, making it all that it can be when high pressure pushes in and mother nature moonlights in other parts of the country.
You may also be pleased to know that our snow is all natural - no implants, no preservatives! This may come as surprise to those who perceive California as an ever sunny dominion, or those who have ridden in southern California. If you have, you may have seen signs like this around.
The sign says" Man-made snow is real snow. It's just man made." Although the sign's assertion may be true (is it?) lucky us, we just don't need it. On average we get 480 inches of snow a season so, you can imagine just how much snow we get on an above average year.
I'm sure you've heard the saying to not eat yellow snow, well it doesn't give the best ride either. If you've ever seen the man made stuff you know it has a yellowy tinge to it - eeewwww!
Snow from ma-nature has sharper edges than artificial snow. The rounder edges of manmade snow make it clump together and make a harder surface; it kind of has the consistency of shaved ice. There's no beating the kind that comes from the clouds. The sharp edges of a natural flake create an organic aeration that make it fluffier and more edgable than manmade, even after its been churned and replaced. Oh yeah, and it's white.
Even when it's not a jaw dropping, face-hurt-from-smiling powder day at Sierra, our hill is still a heck of a ride. We take the time, staff, and care to make sure of it. Every day 30 plus of our 46 trails get churned and or rebuilt by our grooming staff that works around the clock, save when we are skiing/riding it. That grooming includes the up-keep of 5 parks and a Superpipe. I also discovered that often our smaller parks are recreated over night due to the amount of traffic they get during the day, like the one on Upper Snowshoe. We invest 90 man hours a day grooming the mountain and another 30 - 40 hours on our parks. Yes, every day and it's all for your snow sliding enjoyment.
We also invest in the state of the art equipment to get the job done with a fleet of Bison and Bison X CATs and one giant, the best in snow grooming technology, known as the Beast.
So what does "grooming" do to the snow? It does quite a bit as CATs steadily and methodically crawl the slopes through the night. The blade in the front of the CAT pushes and replaces all the bumps, humps and wrinkles made throughout the day by skiers and snowboarders. Next, the snow is caught by the tiller that churns the snow aerating and softening it. This process breaks down chunky and harder bits and then lays it back down. Then there is a "conforming" bar. Yuck I hate that word, let's just call it a packing bar. That's what it does, it gently packs the churned snow so it has an even level and consistency across the hill. And last, attached to the back end of the CAT are combs. It is the combs that lay the grooves we have affectionately come to know as "fresh corduroy". All of these functions go on with each pass of the CAT and most of our runs get this mountain massage multiple times before we call it done.
Some interesting tid bits:
- Grooming Supervisor, Quint Ross, is a professional Jouster (not a requirement of the job) in the summer months and runs the Camp Richardson Corral on Emerald Bay Rd.
- Corduroy is designed in ridges for a reason. The ridges optimize runs for speed in addition to smoothing the terrain. Since the snow is grooved, only half is making contact with the base of your ski or snowboard ergo, less surface contact equals less friction and faster speeds.
- Cats are extremely warm and comfortable and many have some nice sound systems. These guys and gals are out on the hill all night long so, they need some good heat and beats.
- 1 Bison X CAT weighs just under 9 tons and winches steep black diamond runs like Castle from trees. Trees strong like ox, or in this case dinosaur!
- The Bison CAT combination of engine performance and weight ratio results in the both excellent climbing and downhill steering control in the most challenging snow conditions.
- Most moguls you find on the slopes are created by the turns made by snowboarders and skiers when they're shredding. They can be created by groomers but most of the time moguls are only made with CATs for competitions.
See more images in A CAT's LIfe Gallery.
