Trudging across the top of Bromley Mountain Ski Resort on a sunny afternoon in January, Matt Folts checks his smartwatch and smiles at the 14 degrees Fahrenheit temperature. This is nearly his favorite temperature for making snow; cold enough for water to quickly crystallize, but not so cold that his hourslong shifts on the mountain are miserable. As head snowmaker at Bromley, a small ski area on the southern end of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Folts is a burly 35-year-old, sporting a handlebar mustache and orange safety jacket, and wearing thick winter boots as he walks through the snow. A blue hammer swings from his belt as he prepares for an evening shift, ensuring the mountain is ready for tomorrow’s crowd.
His expertise lies in the complexity of snowmaking, a process that is increasingly vital to the ski industry. The efficiency of snowmaking operations has been dramatically improving as ski areas aim to combat rising temperatures. The ski industry pumps over $20 billion annually into ski towns nationwide, but changes in climate are making snowmaking essential to ensuring a surface to ski on.
Efficiency Vermont is making strides to help ski resorts use less energy by urging resorts to swap in more efficient snowmaking devices. In 2014, Efficiency Vermont’s ‘Great Snow Gun Roundup’ retired about 10,000 inefficient models statewide, resulting in a 80 percent less air usage in snowmaking operations. Overall, their efforts have saved more than a billion kilowatt hours of electricity between 2000 and 2022, nearly a million tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. This has been a game changer for Bromley and other ski resorts, saving money and helping to combat climate change through more efficient snowmaking.
