About 15 years ago, Martin shared his dream of opening a ski area with me, so I brought him an Areco fangun demo. He had a small snowmaking system set up to test snowmaking at a nearby site, now a golf course. In 2023, his long-standing vision will finally come to fruition with the opening of Hoedown Hill. When I first looked down the hill in May of 2022, I thought, “This is too big for a tubing hill.” After many video conferences and on-site time, we developed a plan to test out the tubing hill for the coming winter. CHS Snowmakers sourced the pump and snowcat to make snow so we could tube this hill. Three snowgun vendors came to the table and provided automatic fanguns. It will likely be the tallest tubing hill in the USA. In December, the hill turned white, a snowcapped Mount Hoedown. It was visible for miles, standing proudly on the High Plains of eastern Colorado. Our first tubing runs were fast but really good. We continued to make snow through December and early January and tubed it many more times. After the testing was complete, we went back to the drawing board. The […]