Cranmore switches to hand grooming.

[ski diva]

This is from Cranmore, a small ski hill in New Hampshire. Note the date: April 1.

Here's the intro:

We are happy to announce that as of this morning, we are switching to 100% hand grooming. Instead of using those pesky snow machines, we'll depend on a small team of groomers who will walk the mountain and groom by hand. Hand grooming gives the mountain a personal touch that a machine cannot provide. Due to the slower nature of hand grooming, don't be surprised if you see a few groomers on the mountain today.

 

[Marta_P]

love it!

 

[Christy]

Sorta related...when I was avoiding death cookies on otherwise nicely groomed slopes the other day, I thought back to when I used to ride horses, and how the stable manager used to pay little kids to pick rocks out of the outdoor areas. I think they paid per rock. I imagined that Crystal could get an army of little urchins to chuck death cookies off the runs. I also thought about people with rakes.

 

[CrystalRose]

This made me irrationally angry! Really, you're going to make some poor guy walk the mountain with a rake, at night for "artisanal snow"! Then I realized it was a joke...

 

[nopoleskier]

LOL.. But when I worked at Lapland lake XC ski center we would ALL have to go out after wind storms and RAKE the trails!! We would remove the pine boughs, needles and anything on the trails so they wouldn't trip up xc skiers or get buried and come back up in the spring! They really were hand groomed trails all 50KM's!

 

[altagirl]

I love that he said they were going to work in 48 hour shifts. Hahaha