FAN GUNS AND SNOW GUNS

Falls Creek for many years has made a huge commitment to snow making, over 8 million dollars has been spent so in a marginal season, we can still ski.  In the 2006 season, this proved to be the difference between a full season and one of just a few weeks.  We were skiing most of Sun Valley all season and snowmaking ran right up until the end of September allowing the season to last until closing even though only around 80cm of natural snow fell all season.  

AIR AND WATER GUNS, GREAT IN MARGINAL CONDITIONS

Falls Creek was one of the first Australian resorts to introduce snow making 20+ years ago after it examined the best snowmaking available in Europe and America.  Since then its systems have been added to and developed to one of the best in the world.  Falls Creek now has snowmaking covering 120ha of area with 46 fan guns and a large number of air and water guns.

Fan guns operate with the greatest efficiency but as was the case in 2001 in marginal conditions often the older Air and Water guns can provide snowmaking when the fan guns struggle.  Fan guns operate with the greatest efficiency with increased snow production capabilities. Each has an in-built computer and weather station, which automatically responds to changes in humidity and temperature, creating the optimum mix of water, to produce good quality snow at all times. Information from each of the fan guns will be transmitted back to the central computer for precise management of snow production and quality.

Skiers and boarders appreciate reliable snow and Falls Creek has been the market leader in providing good quality man made snow to enhance the natural snowfalls.

THE FALLS CREEK SNOWMAKING CONTROL ROOM

Falls Creek is able to access Rocky Valley Lake with its immense water storage capacity of 28,000,000,000 litres.  To have access to such a large body of water for snowmaking is unheard of anywhere else in Australia.  But being a dam that is linked to other dams a filtration system was necessary for times when water quality is below that required to service the snowmaking system.  In the year 2000 water was being fed into Rocky Valley Dam from the Pretty Valley ponds, this created a lot of silt so in response the Falls Creek Ski Lift Co installed a half million dollar filtration system.  As it happened this was not needed in 2001 but was there as an insurance against any problem that may arise

 

THE FILTRATION SYSTEM

To produce snow requires a lot of air and a lot of water plus the right weather, basically it has to be below minus two and not to humid.  Falls Creek is lucky to have all of these ingredients, they draw 220 litres per second from the dam and add to this air with three huge screw compressors in the snow making hut near Towers, when required they add up to nine more mobile compressors that are fed from a huge underground fuel tank so no mater the conditions these can run throughout the season.  

AIR COMPRESSORS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE SNOWMAKING HUT

I was fortunate to be given a tour of the snowmaking system this year, I never imagined just how complex that the system is,  you would be amazed just how much gear is in that building near Towers, all of the pictures above were taken in there and there is also a huge water tank in there to ensure the water flow is constant.

While we all hope for huge natural dumps of snow, it is good to know when nature lets us down, Falls Creek has a back up plan.  

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For further media information, Contact Debbie Howie  debbiehowie@fallscreek.net - on 03 5758 3280, 0417 572 228