At CHS Snowmakers, we are driven by our passion for snowmaking and making snow efficient. Our commitment to excellence in snowmaking continues with a new vision for 2024. DRIFT Snowmaking Additive is key to making your snow amazing while using fewer resources, and we’ll prove it! We will show you how to make better snow.
The Significance of DRIFT:
Not all surfactants are created equal! In the late 1990s, Demi Moore and her brother Andy Moore of Aquatrols began testing surfactants in snowmaking. After significant experimenting, one stood out as the best and was named DRIFT. They quantified the benefits of DRIFT through extensive field testing. CHS Snowmakers shared their goal of creating the best quality snow more efficiently and became a distributor soon after. In October 2023, CHS Snowmakers acquired all rights to DRIFT with plans to advance its testing further.
Multi-Year Commitment:
We have witnessed considerable advantages of using DRIFT over the years. To define our field observations and dispel any doubts, we have committed to conducting multi-year testing of DRIFT. We will mainly rely on simple field observations, but with the help of recent technological advancements, we anticipate being able to determine the snow volume much faster and more accurately than ever before.
We are Seeking Collaborative Partnerships:
To further our research, we invite ski areas in the USA and Canada to collaborate with us in testing DRIFT. While much of the assessment is subjective, we encourage you to reach out if your snowmaking system faces challenges such as warm water, older snowguns, low water pressure, or requires immediate grooming after snowmaking.
Areas of Improvement:
DRIFT has exhibited notable improvements in various aspects of snowmaking, including warm water applications, using older snowguns, low water pressure issues, and enhancing immediate groomability right after snowmaking–aka Blow and Go!
Microscopic Insights:
Our exploration under the microscope at Hoedown Hill in Colorado has unveiled fascinating differences between DRIFT snow and snow without. DRIFT’s ability to break surface tension results in smaller, weaker bonds between ice pellets, translating to faster cure times, superior snow quality, and enhanced groomability.
Even though we call it “snowmaking,” we are actually making sleet. Sleet is a meteorological definition for rain that freezes before it hits the ground and forms ice pellets. The following photos are exactly what we saw under our 30X microscope when we compared DRIFT snow and snow without DRIFT. (Analyzing ice under a microscope is nothing new to me. I attended Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Part of my meteorology class took place at the Storm Peak Lab with DRI at the top of Steamboat Ski Area.)
The photos depict a subtle difference between the ice pellets with DRIFT and the ice pellets without. The size is the same, but the connections between ice pellets are different. Surfactants break the surface tension of water, making the water droplet take on a flatter shape while flying through the air, thus increasing the surface area and releasing the heat faster. This process allows the water droplet to freeze more quickly.
WITH DRIFT (30x)
WITHOUT DRIFT (30x)
As you see in the photos, the connection between the DRIFT pellets is smaller, and with a smaller connecting point, there is a weaker bond to neighboring pellets. You may wonder why the connection is smaller. The answer is that water makes ice stick together. DRIFT pellets are more thoroughly frozen when they hit the ground, so there is less water to make them stick together. The non-DRIFT pellets do not freeze as thoroughly before they hit the ground. More water makes the non-DRIFT pellets stick and freeze together, creating a stronger bond. If the weather is warmer and the pile of snow larger, this water may not freeze and will either drain out as the pile cures or get pushed to the surface with a snowcat. The smaller and weaker bonds with DRIFT snow make for faster cure times, better snow quality, and better groomability. Ultimately, it is better to ski/board.
As we are testing under a microscope, we are also checking the snow density and the snow quality of the pile. We use only the top inch of fresh snow to check snow density and quality. Early results show an increase in snow quality with DRIFT. The snowgun we are using for testing is a new, fully automatic fan gun directly outside the pump house. When we turn DRIFT on and off, there is a very short delay in the exchange of water in the pipeline, which allows us to see the results almost immediately. For more thorough testing, we plan to run side-by-side snowguns making snow for an extended period on different pipelines.
Upcoming Side-by-Side Testing:
In January 2024, we will conduct side-by-side testing at Hoedown Hill, comparing DRIFT-influenced and snow without. This comprehensive evaluation will include snow density, quality, and volume measurements, utilizing LiDAR technology and the Moasure device.
We plan to thoroughly test two side-by-side guns, one with DRIFT and one without. We will do the snow density testing and also volume testing. Hoedown Hill is an ideal location for this side-by-side testing because, with two different pipelines, we can inject DRIFT into one and not the other. The guns will be at the bottom of the hill in the flats with minimal wind and identical pressure and weather.
There are a few ways to do volume testing:
- Maintain the automatic guns in the same settings and check snow density, quality, and volume.
- Adjust the snowguns according to snow quality, then measure snow density and volume.
We will be using updated technology to measure the snow volume, not the old-fashioned stake test. We will use two types of technology. One is LiDAR on a drone, and the other is the Moasure device. The drone is fast and highly accurate, yet expensive. We will use the Moasure device at the same time and compare its accuracy to LiDAR. Our testing with Moasure is promising for a less accurate measurement (more like the stake test) but acceptable for initial testing.
Environmental Considerations:
Beyond efficacy, we are dedicated to environmental responsibility. DRIFT’s potential energy savings, reduced grooming requirements, increased yield per acre-foot of water, and quicker snowmaking times contribute to a more sustainable snowmaking process.
Environmentally speaking, not only do we want to make sure DRIFT is safe in the water, but we also want to save energy and resources. How do we suspect DRIFT does this?
- Converts more water to ice pellets, thus reducing snowmaking energy (pumps and snowguns electricity)
- Easier to groom, thus saving fuel and wear and tear on the snowcat
- Increases the yield per acre foot of water to snow
- Reduces snowmaking time, allowing for an earlier opening or earlier trail completion
Sublimation (conversion from a solid to a gas) of snow is very difficult to measure in the field. Many years ago, our homeschool group had a tour of the Ice Core Lab in Denver. The ice cores were stored in plastic bags to prevent sublimation. We will test a small, measured amount of DRIFT snow and snow without additive inside a simple freezer for sublimation.
Conclusion:
The benefits of using DRIFT outweigh the associated costs. Through our ongoing testing initiatives, we aim to scientifically confirm this belief and showcase DRIFT’s transformative impact on snowmaking. Your collaboration is vital to our journey, and with ample DRIFT in stock in Idaho, I invite you to join us in shaping the future of snowmaking technology.
