Attention: Ski Area Owners and Operators I am looking for old manuals for snowguns, snowcats, and lifts. If you have any taking up space in your office that you would like to donate or loan to me, please let me know. I will pay for shipping and make sure they are copied to a digital format. By donating or selling your old manuals to me, you will be helping preserve the history of the old resort equipment. I will be starting a library of all the manuals and they will be available for free, online, for future generations. Please contact me if you have any old manuals that you would like to donate or sell to me for my project!

Attention: Ski Area Owners and Operators

June 11, 2022 update – we have hose on order for September delivery (4 to 5 month lead time).  Please send us your requests for hose as soon as possible.  Aluminum is causing the biggest delays. The last two years have been interesting with supply chain issues. It first started with hoarding toilet paper. That trickled down to many other everyday items in the grocery store and now we are dealing with larger items. Car lots have many vacant spaces and used cars are bringing a premium. Parts for your cars or tractors, at times, are hard to come by. Aluminum fittings for our Niedner Snowhose weren’t immune to the supply chain crisis.   We just received an order of snowmaking hose in February we ordered in September. Normally lead time is 4 to 6 weeks but this time it was almost 5 months. Niedner was waiting on the Red Head aluminum fittings and Red Head was waiting on the aluminum to make the fittings.  We have been told lead time is now 6 months.   Don’t procrastinate, buy or order your supplies now for next winter! We have some Niedner hose in stock, Joka gloves in stock and Drift. […]

Supply Chain Issues and Snowmaking Hose

Updated April 2023 For years, ski areas have had incidents with fires, including wildland fires, structure fires, and arson. Many ski areas are remote, buildings are separated from municipal water systems, and access is difficult. Most ski areas have snowmaking systems; some are very large snowmaking systems. A few of these snowmaking systems have been used for fighting fires, but very few ski areas have a good working pre-plan to use these systems and train with their local fire departments. Our goal is to provide the ski industry with an actionable pre-plan, along with a list of the proper equipment to adapt from a snowmaking system to fire hoses. We will recommend ways to use snowmaking equipment to construct unmanned nozzles that will create a large water barrier in an attempt to protect buildings, lifts and possibly even stop an advancing fire. Use this Fire Pre-Plan as a guideline to start a detailed plan for you and your organization. Take this and make it your own, get others in your organization involved, and go out to your community. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know. I am offering this for free and would appreciate additional input […]

CHS Snowmakers Fire Pre-Plan for the Ski Industry

Do you have spare parts for your lifts, snowmaking, or snowcats?  If the question was only for new parts, you would probably say yes.  If you were asked about used parts, you might say no.   You probably do not have a parts store you can run to for some not so common parts, instead you need to find which distributor has it and wait for it to ship.  If you need it tomorrow, then you have to pay for expedited shipping.   What about major components like a gearbox for your lift, tiller pump, fan blade, etc.?  These are not parts you would have on the shelf and can be rather costly to get (thinking gearbox).   Would you consider buying used parts to keep in stock for future use? At the time I write this post, on the CHS Classifieds pages, we have a parts Yan double chair, a parts Hall double chair, and even a complete triple chair.  We also have Lenko fanguns and some used snowcats.  The Yan lift was priced at $25,000 for everything, which includes the gearbox, auxiliary Cummins motor, chairs, grips, sheaves and many other parts.  To order a new gearbox in […]

Should you buy used spare parts?

We have just a bit of Niedner Snowhose 2000 and Drift snowmaking additive left over and need to make room. 10 – 2″ x 50′ Niedner Snowhose 2000 5 – 1.5″ x 50″ Niedner Snowhose 2000 4 – cases of Drift Snowmaking Additive 1 – Brand New (never used in 30 years) Dendrite snowgun with user manual. Plus a pair of Joka gloves or mittens included with your purchase of any of these items. The first person to buy any 5 hoses or one case of Drift will receive this Dendrite snowgun for FREE!  You might ask, “What will I do with a Dendrite snowgun?”  Maybe hang it on your wall as a talking and training piece for your snowmakers next winter. Email us for a custom quote on hose or Drift based on 2020 prices.  Now is the time to stock up for next winter. Sincerely, Jason Sawin CHS Snowmakers 303.818.5923 cell jsawin@CHSsnowmakers.com March, 2021

CHS Snowmakers Spring Clearance – Hose, Drift, and a Dendrite

Check out this great article about Scaly Mountain Outdoor Center in NC, highlighting a few of our favorite things: CHS’s very own Jason Sawin, his amazing consultation skills, and our latest and greatest product…SnöFlake warm-weather snowmaking machine! https://theplateaumag.com/a-thrill-on-the-hill

“A Thrill on the Hill” – Plateau Magazine

Join us on the WHOVA app for The NSAA 2021 Winter Conference & Trade Show. This year is going to be totally VIRTUAL, dudes! We’ll be giving away 5 pairs of Joka Gloves or Mittens, so log in to enter the raffle.

2021 NSAA VIRTUAL Trade Show

SnöFlake snowmaking versus traditional snowmaking reminds me of the children’s story “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Slow and steady wins the race! Check out our YouTube video to see how quickly Scaly Mountain opened. https://youtu.be/gesFWi-Xe8A On-Site Demonstration January 26 & 27th, 2020 at the Scaly Mountain Outdoor Center in Scaly Mountain, NC. Please make a reservation. Earliest Opening Ever The Scaly Mountain Outdoor Center in North Carolina is in a rainforest climate, just a two hour drive from Atlanta. The weather changes quickly and natural snow and cold temps don’t hang around long. Scaly was a ski area from 1980 to the late 1990’s, and then they decided just to do snow tubing. This has been very successful, for the most part. However, since it is a southern climate, some years have been more challenging than others.  In 2019, Scaly Mountain contracted with CHS Snowmakers for consulting to take them to the next level. By November 2019, Scaly was ready to make snow with more snowguns and the improvements that I suggested.  A cold snap in mid November 2019 for 2 days (one of the earliest ever for Scaly) allowed them to make a lot of snow. They opened the […]

SnöFlake Demonstration at Scaly Mountain