Snowmaking at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center is underway after weeks of warm weather hindering progress.
Ski areas like Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain have pushed back opening days due to warm weather. At Soldier Hollow, general manager Luke Bodensteiner said he usually likes to have at least one cross-country ski run open for Thanksgiving weekend. That’s not happening this year. But the cross-country ski area and its tubing hill will open to the public Dec. 12.
“We’ll start with 1.5 kilometers and build from there, and hopefully get an assist from Mother Nature with some real snow. But we don’t wait around for her,” Bodensteiner said.
Soldier Hollow is a purely cross-country ski area that’s situated within the base of Wasatch Mountain State Park and just outside of Midway. It sits at the start of the foothills of the Wasatch Back and features rolling terrain suited for classic and skate skiing.
When they’re snowmaking, Bodensteiner said the main focus is creating a mound of 8 to 10 feet of snow. Then, they push it down the tubing hill with Snow Cats — where snowmaking at the ski area starts — and onto about 4.5 kilometers of initial runs. Pony Express, which is great for beginners, opens first. Then it’s onto an intermediate route called Sprint before advancing to more technical terrain.
Bodensteiner and his team at Soldier Hollow aren’t worried about warmer temperatures. That’s because of the increasingly efficient and resilient snowmaking methods Soldier Hollow has employed in recent years, and especially since the venue played one of the hosts in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.
“It’s interesting, we have lengthened our winter versus 2002 by about four weeks. That’s all just, you know, better snow making, better snow management,” Bodensteiner said.
Although he is not worried about warmer temperatures, it is something Bodensteiner and his team are constantly thinking about and planning for.
The Nordic center, which is host to an estimated 35,000 ski visitations annually, is still set to hit its opening day on Dec. 12. Snow guns and newer snowmaking technology are kicking in to pack hundreds of kilometers of skiable trails with snow.
“We just pay a lot of attention to the forecasts. Our snowmaking is pretty advanced, but we still need extended periods of mid-20s overnight, and then we’ll start to blow,” Bodensteiner said, adding that Soldier Hollow uses fan guns and smaller snowmaking devices called Klick hydrants. “If weather allows, they’ll run 24/7 around the clock in the beginning of the season.”
The main focus right now is snow resilience, according to Bodensteiner. That’s to ensure the venue is capable of hosting pass holders for years to come, but also the 2034 Winter Olympics.
Soldier Hollow is slated to host six Olympic events in 2034: biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, para biathlon and para cross-country skiing. The Nordic center hosted the same events during the 2002 Games.
In January, Bodensteiner said the venue is already perfectly suited to host another set of Olympic Games. But the venue is also suited to all levels of skiers. While Pony Express and Sprint routes are ideal for beginner to intermediate cross-country skiers, there are also runs like Rollercoaster, which attracts more advanced skiers due to its rolling, technical features and terrain.
Updating snowmaking equipment to make about 12 to 15 kilometers of manmade trails has also been an integral part of planning for lengthier snow seasons and automating snowmaking. That’s with the use of new hydrants called Klick hydrants. But Bodensteiner just calls them “sticks.”
The sticks are just that — angled stick-like hydrants that are more than 10 feet tall with a small spout at the top. But the size of the hydrant is not a factor when it comes to how much snow can be produced from the device. Bodensteiner said the evolution from massive snow fan guns to the stick hydrants has been essential for the Nordic center because it has allowed for automation.
The team still utilizes large fan guns, but the stick hydrants put less pressure on the snowmakers. Snowmaking with fan guns is a surefire way to make snow and has been the way to do it for decades. But Bodensteiner said it’s much more of a process.
“The way snowmaking used to be done was, you had to hook up these big fan guns and hook power to them, and you had to hook water to them. They have to turn them on, turn them off and then drain them. And so you wouldn’t make snow if you weren’t going to make it for four or five hours,” Bodensteiner said.
Bodensteiner said snowmaking is also dependent on air temperature and humidity. The colder and drier it is, the more snow can be produced.
“Ideally, we’re making snow when it’s in the teens or single digits and it’s clear skies — we can make a ton of snow overnight. It’s a little more of a grind when it’s 24 degrees and cloudy,” Bodensteiner said.
With automation, the stick hydrants kick on for 10 minutes or so when conditions are right and then turn themselves off.
“These new snowmaking installations we put in just in the last few years are way more efficient because they’re kind of taking advantage, even of these little times when the conditions might be right for 10 or 15 minutes even,” Bodensteiner said.
While it’s a tremendous effort to make enough snow to cover the Nordic center’s trail system, it’s not as much of an impact on water usage as it may seem. Bodensteiner said this year, Soldier Hollow will use about 45 million gallons of water. Mountain, spring-fed water, that is.
“The water company actually likes it. It flows into a pond up there by that building,” Bodensteiner said, pointing to a building in the Nordic center at the foothills of the Wasatch Back. “And then we draw it out of there to blow over here. … We’re a pretty light touch on the water usage that we have.”
And the Nordic center is exploring further paths toward resilience and efficiency.
As late fall, early winter weather becomes more finicky each year, Soldier Hollow is planning with a tactic Bodensteiner calls snow storage. The Nordic center is working to create its own 100-yard by 50-yard wide glacier — essentially, it’s a football field filled with 25 feet of snow, according to Bodensteiner.
Once the snow storage area is at full capacity and when weather conditions change in February, Bodensteiner said the Nordic center team will put insulating mats over the top of the entire football field-sized area to seal it until early November.
Snow storage at that capacity will last Soldier Hollow throughout the winter and then through the next three seasons until it’s packed with more snow the following year. It’s a strategy that’s been used in areas like the Canmore Nordic Center in Alberta, Canada.
“They’ve been doing it for quite a few years. Nobody’s tried it this far south, and we get pretty high daytime temps, so it’s a little experimental, but we wanted to test it out,” Bodensteiner said. “It might become part of our snow strategy for the Olympics.”
Even with snowmaking systems up to snuff, Bodensteiner said he still hopes to get that “assist” from winter weather. To open by Dec. 12, there needs to be enough snow for at least one run — about two feet of snow coverage — before it’s pushed out with snow cats and then groomed.
Though Soldier Hollow teamed up with Wasatch Mountain State Park this year to offer Nordic skiing in both areas, it’s likely only Soldier Hollow that will be able to offer early winter skiing due to the park’s lack of snowmaking.
“Their cross-country skiing is a bit limited,” Bodensteiner said, adding that he is excited for the days when skiing will be available at both locations.
Season pass skiing and youth programs — including about 550 kids enrolled in ski programs — will kick off as soon as Soldier Hollow opens for the season. For Wasatch Back residents who don’t ski, tubing will also open on opening day.