Gunstock prepares for snowmaking ahead of opening day Dec. 5

GILFORD — Gunstock Mountain Resort will open for the season on Friday, Dec. 5, and staff are busy preparing new equipment for smooth lift operation, snowmaking and trail maintenance.

President and General Manager Robert Drake said there is plenty to be excited about.

“We are positioning all our snow guns, and ran tests on the system this past weekend, so we are all good and ready to go,” Drake said Monday.

Gunstock recently invested more than $3 million for lift repairs and maintenance, as well as $2.5 million for snowmaking and grooming equipment, and another $4 million for electrical systems and other infrastructure.

Drake said they are aiming to start making snow on Wednesday, Nov. 12, as this typically allows for snowmaking to be done most efficiently.

“We may have temperatures to lay snow down before that, but we don’t want to put it down too early, just to lose it,” Drake said. “If we were to get a good cold snap and see long-term that it would hold, we could definitely fire them up.”

Drake noticed it will be around freezing at night this week, but could be warmer during the day. He said freezing temperatures are not needed to start blowing snow, but it is best to start when there are cold temperatures both during the day and night. This currently puts crews in the monitoring stage of snowmaking.

“We have the power to put snow down quickly here at Gunstock, so we are really lucky in that regard,” Drake said. “We really do watch the temperatures closely here.”

Drake said crews are getting the fan guns into position, noting Gunstock purchased 25 more for this year, and are changing out older ones to install them accordingly. He said crews have installed the new snowmaking machines to Recoil, and moved older ones to the bottom of Upper Ramrod, where there were no stick guns.

“We moved these to be more efficient, so we don’t have to be running back and forth to manually place snow guns,” Drake said.

Drake said the focus this summer was reliability, through updating lift parts, installing a new haul rope on the Ramrod chairlift, and undergoing a power assessment of infrastructure in place since the 1980s, to find any issues.

One transformer on the mountain needed to be replaced, with another already onsite. Now installed, it should be properly functioning for the winter.

Last year, a power outage forced the mountain to shift to auxiliary battery power for the Panorama chairlift summit. Drake said a generator was purchased for power at the summit, which includes the lift, the Panorama Pub, ski patrol hut, and bathrooms.

“The focus this summer was ensuring that we don’t have issues that we had last year with power and some lift failures,” Drake said. “That word reliability is the key, so everything can run as expected.”

Work this spring surrounded making necessary replacements to avoid any malfunctioning of the Panorama lift, which was a large problem last winter. The first phase of a two-year lift project was completed in May.

Gunstock staff are also finishing up “modernization projects” on all other lifts.

“This is part of making sure Gunstock is a reliable place to ski,” Drake said. “We know it is fun, but if the lifts don’t turn, it’s not fun anymore.”

A big push in the offseason was to finish renovations to the camp store, which becomes the Nordic center in the winter. Renovations were completed in the spring.

“Nordic skiers can ski right out from the building,” Drake said.

There will also be improved snowmaking for the Nordic ski area, as well as better lighting.

Drake said he's excited about new snow grooming machines, including a Prinoth Bison and the Prinoth Leitwolf Winch. The Leitwolf Winch is the largest groomer on the mountain, and will allow for smooth, consistent surfaces on steeper terrain. It will also make it possible to move large amounts of snow uphill and across fall lines, and ultimately save operators time, and save the mountain money.

Over the past few weeks, the grooming machines have been delivered to the mountain and are now facing Cherry Valley Road with a countdown to opening day.

“People are driving by and seeing them, and it is creating a little bit of a buzz,” Drake said. “That is the whole idea. We wanted to show off the snow cats, because they are really good machines.”

With season passes going fast, temperatures dropping, and days getting shorter, Drake said there have been calls flowing in. Gunstock is represented at the Country Ski Expo this weekend in Hanover, Massachusetts, as well as at the Snowbound Exposition, Nov. 14-16, at the Menino Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston.

For ticketing information and a schedule of events, visit Gunstock.com.